Barn Intermissions
by TropeOverdosed
Summary: After saving the Earth, Peridot is not quite sure what to make of her newest mission: befriending a surly, uncompromising blue gem. A series of short chapters focusing on the offscreen development of Lapis and Peridot's relationship. Could be interpreted as Lapidot or merely an unlikely friendship.
1. Penetrating the Solidified Water

_Hello! This series was an idea I'd had in the back burner for a while; I feel like for as much rich character and plot development Steven Universe has, it still doesn't fully touch on the evolution of Lapis and Peridot's friendship. I mean, they weren't exactly on the best of terms in Barn Mates, and yet the next time we see them interacting in Beta, they're getting along quite swimmingly. So, yeah. I've planned on making a series of vignettes about the budding relationship of these two unlikely friends. The stories are all in chronological order, picking up between the events of Hit the Diamond and Steven Floats, after Steven leaves Lapis and Peridot by themselves at the Barn and returns to Beach City._

 _Please note that this series does NOT have a definite ending point; after this series is up-to-date with the events of the latest Steven Universe episode, I will keep updating it as new moments between Lapis and Peridot are shown in canon._

 _I think we're good now. Thanks for the read! :)_

* * *

 **Penetrating the Solidified Water**

 **(i.e., Peridot Desperately Attempts to Make Lapis Break the Ice)**

 _Click._

"Log date: eight one seven two." Peridot took a deep breath.

 _"AAAAGHHH!"_

 _Click._

Steven kept encouraging to use her words, but that was the only way Peridot could sum up her feelings right now. Within the span of a single Earth revolution, she had successfully managed to land on the gemforsaken planet, survey the Cluster, forge an unlikely alliance to destroy it, and become a savior to humankind (not that she ever got enough credit for it, anyway, but that was a different problem entirely).

But her latest mission? It was an _absolute disaster._

Despite saving Peridot's life from those loudmouthed, violent Rubies, the Lazuli had refused to talk to her since. And in all honesty, Peridot herself was a bit too scared to push it any further. The Lazuli had agreed to live with her; that in itself was more than she had expected. And she had seen for herself what could happen if you push things too far on this planet.

But Lazuli wasn't from this planet. She was just like her: a lone Homeworld gem on a strange planet with no way back or any desire to go return to her original dwelling.

So, naturally, she should get along with Peridot. Like meets like. The only logical outcome.

But _logic_ never worked on Earth, either. Logic. Peridot's go-to method for cracking any problem. But by logic, Peridot would never have had the desire to befriend a wild, unruly Amethyst. By logic, Garnet should not be so comfortable as a permafusion, made of total opposites who were somehow always melded together. By logic, Pearls belonged alongside their masters as an accessory, not as the pilot of a spaceship or a robot. By logic, a hybrid gem species such as Steven shouldn't even exist. But the Earth seemed to love harboring the impossible.

It also seemed to love messing with Peridot's mind. Logically, she could still continue her day-to-day activities without holding any conversation with Lazuli. So why was she still trying to find a solution? Was there any problem to solve in the first place?

"Rrrrgh," she grumbled, a bit softer this time. She plopped down onto the barn floor, her head propped up by a small, green arm resting in between her chin and knee. She glared pensively at the planks of wood below her, thinking about that ridiculous thing Steven had told her before he had left Peridot alone with Lazuli.

 _Just try to break the ice!_ he had said cheerfully, stuffing his pajamas into his duffel bag (why humans needed to change their appearance modifiers before resting was beyond Peridot. What was the point if they'd just close their eyes and not look at their new attire? Just one more thing that made no sense on this planet).

"Hmm..." Peridot wondered aloud. _"Break the ice._ But why? Is it because Lazulis like water?"

But this particular Lazuli didn't seem quite fond of water, and for good reason. Peridot couldn't imagine being stuck with Jasper, of all people, under an entire sea of water for for more than an entire Earth revolution. What a nightmare. She shuddered. Steven's advice must have had some other reason behind it. And Peridot would never admit it openly, but she was out of ideas. She wasn't quite sure which one it was, but Steven either knew Lazuli longer or better than Peridot. Perhaps it was both.

She stood up, resigned to get to work with Steven's suggestion. This planet didn't give her much leeway for logic, anyways. She might as well just throw it out the window altogether.

Approximately one Earth rotation later, Peridot went running up to the silo, making her presence known to the Lazuli through both the noisy clangs and sloshes the bucket she was carrying made and through her incessant yelling.

"HEY LAZULI! LAZULI! HEY LAZULI! HEY!"

No response.

"Hmm...maybe I should yell louder," Peridot muttered. She took a deep breath. "HEY, LAZ—!"

 _"SHUT UP!"_ came a cry from a above. Huh, so she had heard Peridot.

"BUT YOU HAVE TO COME DOWN HERE QUICKLY BEFORE THE ICE MELTS!"

"Wait...what?" A blue head peered down from the silo, looking somewhat confused.

"THE ICE! IN THIS BUCKET! YOU HAVE TO—"

Peridot stopped in mid-sentence as the blue gem floated down to the ground.

"You don't have to yell. I can hear you perfectly fine from up there."

"...Oh. Well then, why don't you ever answer?"

Lapis snorted. "'Cause you're annoying."

"But I don't want to be!"

"Well, good luck with that."

"No! Really." Peridot stuck the bucket out to Lapis.

Lapis peered into the bucket, narrowing her eyes. "Ice? Are you trying to offer me more water? I told you I want to stay away from it."

"I know you do!" Peridot said, nearly dropping the bucket in frustration. "That's why I had no idea why Steven told me to do this!"

"Wait, Steven told you to give me this?"

"Well...not exactly. I asked him how to get on better terms with you and he told me to _break the ice."_

Lapis's nose wrinkled in confusion. "What does that mean?"

"I don't know! But I have ice in this bucket. And an axe."

"Where's the axe?"

"It's, uh—" Peridot set the bucket on the floor, scanning the grass around her before slapping her gem with her hand. "I left it back at the barn. Uh...I'll be back! Don't move!"

Peridot frantically ran to the barn, scrambling to get the axe before the Lazuli flew back up to the silo. Miraculously, for some reason, she had decided to speak with Peridot. This was her one chance to take advantage of that. This ice had to be broken before it was too late.

That's why she was beyond aggravated when she came back to see both the bucket and the gem gone.

She stamped her feet in the dirt, dropping the axe. "Where did you— _ack!"_ she yelped. Something small, cold, and wet hit her nose from up above.

Peridot stared up at the silo, where Lapis was sitting, a bucket nested in the crook of her arm.

"What the...what are you doing?!" she demanded.

"Breaking the ice," Lapis responded coolly. She scooped up a handful of it from the bucket and showered it on the green gem, resulting in a series of incoherent screeches from below.

Peridot wiped water off her visor. "You're not supposed to do that by _throwing it at me!"_

"Hey, it's working."

"Yeah?! Well, take _this!"_ Peridot violently tore out some grass from the ground and threw it upwards when she remembered that gravity did, in fact, not work that way. The blades floated back down as more icy shrapnel fell on her from above.

She shook herself dry, picked up the axe, and tramped back to the barn, face burning with humiliation as she heard the Lazuli snicker loudly in the background.

 _Wait._ She stopped in her tracks. _Laughter._ She had successfully managed that surly gem laugh. Perhaps she was getting somewhere thanks to her strangely above-average knack for being 'funny'.

But as Peridot picked out shards of ice buried in her hair, she knew that she couldn't get showered in frozen water every day just to make Lazuli hate her less. There had to be some other ways to make amends that didn't involve buckets of ice.

And she was determined to find out what they were.

* * *

 _Lapis isn't known by Peridot as 'Lapis' just yet_ — _in canon, Peri initially refers to Lapis as 'Lazuli' before gradually calling her by the first half of her name._

 _Also, yes! I am aware that Lapis destroyed Peridot's tape recorder in Barn Mates, even though it is implied that she is using a tape recorder in this chapter. More on that in the next chapter!_

 _Midterms are coming up in school, so the next update may take a while. I'm enjoying writing this series and getting a feel for the characters, though. I had a bit of trouble with getting a feel for Lapis, but hopefully she is in-character enough. Until next time! :)_


	2. Gemforsaken Planet

_Hey! Remember when I said to not count on an update super-soon or anything? Yeah. I lied. You can never really trust me with when I say I'll update_ — _just know that I will never abandon my fics. That's a pet peeve of mine. I'd never want to contribute to dead fic culture._

 _Anyways, all the kind reviews really meant a lot, so thanks you guys! :')_

* * *

 **Gemforsaken Planet**

 **(i.e., Peridot and Lapis Can See Homeworld's Galaxy From Here)**

The sun was beginning to sink in the sky, blanketing Peridot in soft, orangish-violet light as she paced the barn. She grumbled. Great. Yet another Earth rotation wasted.

It had been approximately three Earth rotations since the "ice" Steven had spoken of had been broken, and yet Mission Eight was still not close to being called a success.

Considering how immensely difficult this ordeal was, Peridot definitely deemed it worthy enough to be called a mission. All of her log dates were comprised of three segments: misson number, date, and millennia. And conveniently for her, Earth had adopted Homeworld's calendar system from its brief yet influential time spent as a colony (the only thing that made sense to her so far on this planet). All she had to do was keep track of her missions, which was simple enough.

Missions One and Two were effortless ones, involving the tweaking of some kindergartens not too far from Homeworld: so simple and so close to the time of her own creation that she could hardly remember them. Mission Three was successfully arriving on Earth for the first time. Four and Five consisted of obtaining an informant and escort, then confronting the Crystal Gems. Mission Six was checking on the cluster. Seven was destroying it. Eight was...

Peridot knit her brows in confusion. What exactly _was_ Mission Eight? Talking to Lazuli? Befriending Lazuli? Avoiding getting her gem kicked into the next solar system by Lazuli? Was it...Lazuli herself? Could a mission be someone, rather than something? She shook her head. A ridiculous thought. The stench of this Earth barn must be getting to her.

Unsure what else to do, she stopped pacing and turned to her tape recorder. Well, her makeshift tape recorder.

Lazuli had destroyed the other one.

It consisted of a small box which once held the "see-ree-uhl" that Steven would shove into his lower facial cavity each morning to convert into energy ( _rather inefficient,_ she had noted to herself. _I'll work on a modification for Steven later_ ). The box had a hole made up at the top, in which a pen was driven through pointfirst. The pen's bottom half stuck out of the hole, serving as a "button" for her to press before speaking her mind.

...And it was useless. It was embarrassing. Of course she knew the stupid box couldn't record anything, and yet she kept it around. Perhaps, if anything, it was more of a reminder of her old, functional tape recorder, which was in turn a reminder of how she recorded her logs on her limb enhancers before _they_ were thrown away. It had no purpose except to comfort her.

But something was better than nothing, no matter how crude and humiliatingly primitive that something was.

After all, it wasn't _her_ fault the other Crystal Gems hadn't left a single spare wire or circuit board for Peridot in the barn. Pearl had told her that none of the remaining parts were up to par, anyways; but she was most likely just jealous that Peridot would outdo her inventions once more (she had never let Pearl hear the end of how her blast cannon had saved the world from the brink of destruction, and rightfully so). The only things left in the barn were strange human devices: _socks_ and _mops_ and _paint,_ among others. Odd bits and pieces of no use to her. Well, there was the television, but Peridot could never bring herself to disassemble it—Earth had done one thing right, and that was Camp Pining Hearts. Yes, the television was definitely a necessity, so she had to make do with what she had. And if it was a cardboard box and a dried out writing utensil? So be it.

She gently picked up the box, using a thumb to press down on the "button" with a click.

"Log date: eight two one two. The Lazuli spoke to me earlier today as I was creating a visual organizer explaining why Paulette should have lost the Tenth Annual Cupid Canoe Race instead of Pierre. She said, 'nice drawings. They look terrible.' Then she flew away. Obviously, she was lying about one of those statements. I'm thinking it's the latter. She appears to be employing the 'sarcasm' Steven told me about..."

She trailed off. Steven. _He_ would know how to respond to Lazuli. _He_ always made Lazuli smile. Steven was the reason Lazuli had even agreed to give Peridot a chance in the first place.

And now there was no reason keeping the two together. Steven was their one link, and he was gone.

Peridot sighed. "Progress seems slow, but hopefully imminent. Peridot, Facet 5. End log."

She clicked the pen once more and lowered the box, watching the orange-violet sky melt into a deep bluish-black. Just her, the box, and the stars.

"I wish Steven were here," she muttered.

"Well, at least that's one thing we can agree on."

 _"Gah!"_

Leaning on the barn's doorframe with her arms crossed was the Lazuli, a soft, pale blue in the dim moonlight.

Peridot frowned. "I thought you liked staying up on that grain compartment."

"Yeah. But not when the stars come out." Lapis looked away.

"Really? Why?"

Lapis stared at the ground, arms still crossed, kicking at the dirt. She didn't respond.

Peridot clenched her teeth. She had asked a question, which should, in turn, prompt an answer. That was how conversations _worked._ Lazuli wasn't even cooperating. It was all up to Peridot. And it was getting to be tiresome.

They sat in silence, Lapis glaring at the ground while Peridot settled with gazing at the stars.

"You know...I like it when the stars come out," Peridot said, more to herself than anyone else. "You can see Homeworld's galaxy from here."

"I _know!"_

Peridot turned around to see Lapis practically digging her heels into the dirt. She sighed, exasperated.

"Great. What did I say wrong _this_ time?"

"I know you can see Homeworld's galaxy from here," Lapis repeated, once again refusing to answer Peridot's question. She would have to work on that with her later. "That's why I don't like it."

"But you're _from_ Homeworld!"

"No. I'm not _from_ anywhere, and you don't get that." Lapis sighed in frustration. "I don't even know why I wanted to talk to you."

"Waiiit...you _wanted_ to talk to me?"

"Uh!" Lapis stiffened, eyes darting from Peridot to her dirt-encased feet to the stars until she settled to glare at the green gem.

"I never said that."

"Of _course_ you didn't...that was _sarcasm,_ by the way." Peridot beamed.

Lapis rolled her eyes. "You're impossible." She got off of the barn's doorframe and opened up her wings.

"Wait!"

She hesitated for a minute before closing her wings again.

"I think I do get what you mean. About not wanting to see Homeworld. You know you can never go back there. And you don't want to either, after what they did to you—"

"You."

Peridot blinked. "What?"

"What _you_ did to me."

"Oh, uh..." Peridot cleared her throat, her cheeks growing warm. "Right." Did she really have to bring the whole capturing her as an informant thing up every chance she got? "After...what _I_ did to you. But!" she continued, "either way, you warned Steven about our arrival. You disobeyed the Diamonds. You know you can't go back, and..." she sighed. "I know that I can't go back, and...we're stuck here."

Lapis crossed her arms. "What are you trying to tell me?"

"I'm _getting there!_ Just let me finish!" Peridot grumbled incoherently before continuing. "Look, Lazuli. We're both from Homeworld, okay? Nothing can ever change that. Even if you don't want to be from Homeworld. But just because you're from there doesn't mean..." she looked down at the box she was holding, a dim, flimsy, red rectangle that smelled sickly sweet from the cereal that was once inside of it. It was the most ridiculous, most useless thing that she had ever created, yet she never wanted to let it go.

"...it doesn't mean that you can't form a new home here."

Lapis considered this, staring up at the stars and then back to Peridot. "Huh. That's surprisingly sentimental, coming from you."

"Oh, shut up," Peridot snapped. The last thing she needed was more sarcasm from Lazuli.

To Peridot's surprise, Lapis simply smiled in response. A small, faint smile, but still enough to reach her eyes and be seen clearly even in the darkness. Perhaps she had meant what she said...for once.

"Lapis," she said as she opened up her wings once more.

"What?"

"Call me Lapis," she said, leaving Peridot to stare at her in amazement as she flew back to the silo to gaze up at the stars.

* * *

 _Peridot can call Lapis 'Lapis' now! God, they grow up so fast. :') I'm still in the process of trying to get a strong sense of Lapis's character but I think I'm getting there._

 _Get it,_ Cupid Canoe? _Because it's Camp Pining_ Hearts? _I'm a riot._

 _No Stevens were harmed or modified in the making of this fic._

 _Thanks so much for reading!_


	3. An Exhibition on Earth's Various Devices

_Hey! I'm back after a long week of classes. Working on this chapter was certainly a nice break in between all the tests and assignments! And oh, man, Three Gems and a Baby was a great break as well. It was just adorable. Bless baby Steven for existing._

 _Once again, thank you so much for all reviews and support; it never goes unappreciated!_

* * *

 **An Exhibition on Earth's Various Devices**

 **(i.e., Peridot and Lapis Look Kind of Ridiculous)**

"This is a _hair brush."_ Peridot offered it to Lapis by the handle.

Lapis stroked the bristles curiously. "Hmm."

"Humans use it to alter the appearance of the follicles sprouting from their head. Because they can't shapeshift—you know, like gems!" Peridot laughed nervously. "Because gems can shapeshift. And I'm a gem."

"Uh...yeah. You are." Lapis raised an eyebrow.

"Yep! Anyways, uh..." Peridot scanned the barn for more objects to potentially impress Lapis with. It felt nice to actually be the one teaching others about Earth and its strange devices and rituals for once. All the data and observations she had collected were finally being put to good use.

...Well, if Lapis was actually listening to her, that is. She would obligatorily pluck a few strings on a ukulele or scrape the wooden end of a mop against the barn floor, nonplussed. Then she would put it back right where Peridot had found it. Her lack of questions frustrated Peridot; _questions_ were what allowed her to elaborate on her knowledge of each object.

So far, she had been the one doing more of the talking...as always.

"Hmm...oh!" Peridot rushed to the chest near the barn's ladder, getting an idea. She thrust the lid open, shoving her arm in and digging around before pulling out an assortment of clothes.

"These," she said, standing up and gesturing proudly to the hats, pants, and jackets around her, "are _shirts."_

Lapis walked over to her, picking up a hat and dusting it off. "What do they do?"

Peridot grinned. _Finally._ Lapis seemed curious about something. Perhaps these shirts were where she could truly demonstrate her Earthly expertise.

"Let me show you."

She eagerly wriggled into a pair of worn-out jeans, slipped into a grey, threadbare jacket, and grabbed the yellow hard hat out of Lapis's hands, triumphantly placing it on the top of her hair.

"Well?" Peridot asked, throwing her arms out. The jacket sleeves flopped around as she moved, flimsy and oversized on her. The jeans didn't fare any better, a pool of denim forming at her feet after it had covered the extent of her legs.

"Are you amazed yet?"

Lapis slowly blinked, taking it all in before bursting into laughter. At first, it was a series of titters she stifled with a hand over her mouth, but it eventually escalated into something more.

It was nothing like the small, sharp inhalations or casual chuckles she occasionally did; this time, it erupted from within her, unrestrained and explosive, resounding throughout the barn. Peridot was too startled to move.

"That's...an interesting look for you," she said after her fit of laughter had subsided. She wiped a tear from her eye.

"So...you approve?"

Lapis shrugged, a small smile on her face. "Sure, why not."

 _"So..."_ said Peridot, sidling towards her, "do you wanna try anything on?"

"Um...no thanks."

"What?" Peridot's shoulder's slumped in frustration. "Why _not?_ " She had spent the entire day showing off her extensive knowledge of this planet, something Lapis should obviously be lacking in; she had spent a much shorter amount of time on Earth than Peridot had, after all. She was showing her something novel, something she had never seen before. She should have stars in her eyes. She should be amazed.

And yet the blue gem in front of her seemed not even the least bit enthusiastic.

"Well, I mean...you look kind of...ridiculous." Lapis sniggered, crossing her arms.

"Ridiculous?!" Peridot scowled. Just when she thought she was able to decipher Lapis's speech patterns, she confused her again with this... _sarcasm_. "You just said I looked _interesting!"_

"Interesting doesn't always mean _good."_

"Whatever," she grumbled, slipping out of her bulky jeans and jacket. The hard hat dropped to the floor with a clack. She searched around for her makeshift cereal box recorder, seizing it from the corner to her left and clutching it to her chest. She strode out of the barn, leaving a somewhat confused Lapis to herself.

Peridot plopped onto the grass outside and sighed, jabbing the button on the box.

"Log date: eight two two two. I've spent a significant portion of today attempting to display my expertise on Earth's various devices to the Laz—er, _Lapis."_ Peridot shook her head, correcting herself. "But she doesn't seem to be showing _any_ interest whatsoever! I even taught her about shirts! Who wouldn't like _shirts?!_ Instead, she said it was all... _ridiculous._ She chose to live on this planet, but it appears that she just...doesn't want to be a part of it."

She paused her ranting momentarily, lowering the box from her mouth. She recalled that one night she had spent in Steven's bathroom, shortly after her capture.

She was all alone, the room a bright and cluttered mess of _shower curtains_ and _toothbrushes_ and _towels_ she was far too scared to touch; they were all weapons. Even more weapons lay on the other side of the door, wielded by the Crystal Gems, bent on destroying her. Everything was a weapon. The planet itself was harboring a weapon at its very core, why should the rest of Earth be any different? She had clung onto the only thing she knew: the one foot that was salvaged from her limb enhancers. She clutched it fiercely to her chest as she sat in the tub.

And in the dead of the night, crouched in that cramped, uncomfortable crevice, she had decided that perhaps Earth wasn't just a weapon. It was a prison too.

Peridot had not wanted to take any part in it. Well, at first, anyways. It was all prior to her learning of _televisions_ and _jokes_ and _friends;_ before she had felt that wonderful sense of being free, able to discover these things at her leisure rather than being forced to assimilate to Earth's practices.

Perhaps that was how Lapis felt.

"Maybe...this mission's completion will take longer than expected. But Lapis is talking to me now. And she's not attempting to use me as a means of _breaking ice_ anymore. I would still call that progress, even if it's nothing too extraordinary. I'm not giving up. Peridot, Facet 5. End log."

Peridot walked back to the barn, ready to confront Lapis with a different strategy. Being the exceptionally generous gem that she was, she would forgive her for the comment about her shirts, then ask her if there was anything she wanted to talk about or show her (she would probably already know it all anyways, but Peridot had quickly discovered that lying was one of the more useful skills to acquire on Earth).

"Lapis!" she called out as she neared the entrance. "I..." she faltered, dropping her box as she took in the scene in front of her. "Uh."

Sure enough, Lapis was in the barn, just like Peridot had expected. She was also sporting shiny, black leather jacket, a red bowtie on her wrist, and a hairbrush that dangled from her bangs and hung in front of her face; just what Peridot hadn't expected.

"Oh! Peridot." Lapis attempted to tug the brush out of her hair, but it seemed to be anchored to her bangs. "Um, is this supposed to stay here?" Her cheeks were a shade darker than normal.

"I don't think so."

"Oh." Lapis tugged again, wincing slightly as the brush yanked back on her hair in response.

Peridot casually leaned back against the barn's doorframe, crossing her arms. "You know," she said, a smile creeping across her face, "you look kind of... _ridiculous."_

"Oh, just shut up and help me."

Peridot obliged, albeit sniggering, and gestured for Lapis to sit down. She let out a small gasp when she leaned over and saw the mess that was the blue gem's hair.

"Oh my stars. This looks _awful."_

Lapis snorted. "Think you're up for it—ow!" she yelped as Peridot began the long, unwieldy process of loosening a particularly bad knot in her hair.

Peridot grinned. "I never turn down a challenge."

* * *

 _I figured that Lapis is one of those people who feigns disinterest in something in front of others, revealing her curiosity only when she thinks she is by herself. Peridot shows hints of that sometimes in canon as well_ _—except she feigns distaste more than disinterest. Also, don't trust Peridot, because I personally think Lapis would totally own it in a leather jacket._

 _For those of you worried that I'll never get to the things Lapis and Peridot did in canon, such as watching Camp Pining Hearts or remodeling the barn: fear not! The former will be touched upon in the fourth chapter. Until next time! And thanks so much for the support! :)_


	4. Camp Clod

_Hello, I'm back with another installment! We're finally getting into some Camp Pining drama._

 _Also, once again: thanks for the support! It means so much :')_

* * *

 **Camp Clod**

 **(i.e., Lapis is Introduced to the Wonders of the Television)**

Peridot would never admit it out loud, but...she had been an _idiot._ A foolish, dense clod. She had spent an entire Earth rotation showing Lapis various devices, and yet she had managed to leave out the most important of them all.

"I can't believe I've never shown you the television!" she cried as she dusted off a VHS.

"I would've been fine not knowing about it," said Lapis, staring warily at the blank screen. She hunched over slightly on the couch. Her eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. "It looks like a mirror."

 _Oh._ That was right. Steven had briefly explained to Peridot that Lapis didn't like mirrors that much (Peridot, on the other hand, found it fascinating to study her own reflection, but she was graciously willing to compromise). She didn't know too many details, but Lapis was apparently imprisoned in a mirror for millennia, constantly interrogated by gems who demanded her to show them certain locations and events pertaining to the Earth rebellion, trapped and utterly hopeless with absolutely no means of escape...

Peridot winced. Perhaps she should have turned on the television first before bringing Lapis up here.

"Easily remedied!" she said, hastily running up to the device and pushing the power button.

"Uh...Now it just looks blue."

"Not for long!" Peridot yelled back. She carefully slid the VHS she was holding out of its flimsy cardboard cover. She couldn't help but grin as she looked at the label on the tape, overcome by a wave of nostalgia.

"Oh, Season One, so many memories..." she whispered as she stroked an edge of the tape with her free hand. "I can't believe it's been almost a week since I've seen you last."

"How often do you see these?" Lapis asked.

"Every day," Peridot said as she pushed the VHS its corresponding slot on the television. "I usually cycle between the seasons, but I skip the fifth one most of the time. It's _trash."_

"Good to know. So...you just stare at them?" Lapis eyed a stray tape lying on the floor near the couch and nudged it with her toe.

"What?" Peridot laughed. "No, no. You insert them into the television and it displays images synchronized with sounds."

"What's so special about tha—"

"Shh, shh!" Peridot ran back to the couch and leapt onto the cushion on Lapis's right. "It's about to start!" she whispered excitedly.

 _I don't care if you're on the yellow team, Percy. We can make this work._

Peridot snorted. "Ha! As if Percy would want a whiny clod like you, Paulette." She nudged Lapis by the elbow. "That's Paulette, by the way. She's the _worst."_

"Why?"

"Far too many reasons to consistently keep track of, but I would approximate it to around 536, currently. First off, she's constantly complaining. She keeps crying over how she's afraid of getting Percy in trouble for consorting with the blue team, but she endangers him anyway! Which leads to my second point: she somehow manages to entice Percy into making mouth-to-mouth contact with her—what humans call a kiss. Apparently the action of 'kiss' is not acceptable behavior at camp, and the rest of Percy's team condemned him for doing so even though that clod Paulette was the one who dragged him into it in the first place. And worst of all? Paulette _knew_ it would wound Percy's reputation! Thirdly, Paulette is athletically inept. She lost her team's first canoe race by rowing in the wrong direction, and then the second time, she—"

"Wait, wait," Lapis interrupted. "What are they doing now?"

Peridot's attention snapped back to the television screen. "Oh! Team Yellow is about to compete against Team Purple in a scavenger hunt. See the tall one over there? That's Pierre. Leader of the purple team. He is a _brute._ He's unstoppable—Percy is probably the only one in the entire camp who rivals his stamina. They're in different factions, but they teamed up with each other once to retrieve Paulette from the woods. Although personally _I_ would have just left her there." Peridot frowned. "Anyways, Pierre and Percy were invincible as a team. They found Paulette within mere minutes, and yet Paulette only thanked Percy. The clod. I don't even know why they spent all that time setting out to find her, although it did provide some satisfactory development of Percy and Pierre's dynamic. It's obvious that the two are the most compatible match in the entire camp..."

 _Oh, Paulette! She's in quite a sticky situation now after Team Yellow saw her share a forbidden kiss with Percy. Will true love still find a way? Or will Paulette have to suffer an injury far worse than a fractured arm or leg: a broken heart? Tune in next time on Camp Pining Hearts to find out!_

"Well!" said Peridot, hopping off the couch as the screen faded to black. "That was the first episode. It's admittedly not the best one, but far better than Season Five when the entire camp spent _twelve episodes at a beach_. What is this, _Beach_ Pining Hearts? Ha! Anyways, what are your thoughts?"

Lapis shrugged. "Couldn't really form any. I couldn't make out anything they were saying."

"What? Why didn't you tell me earlier?! Perhaps we should adjust the audio output levels on the television."

"Or maybe you should adjust _your_ audio output levels, Peridot. All I could hear was you ranting the entire time."

"Ugh, fiiine," Peridot grumbled. "We can watch the first episode again. Here, I'll rewind it. Where's the visual-auditory modification apparatus?"

"Uh, the what?" Lapis asked as the green gem stuck her hand underneath a couch cushion and started digging around.

"Never mind!" Peridot said, triumphantly pulling out a remote from under the cushion. She thrust the the device in front of the television, about to rewind the episode when she had forgotten something highly important. Again. She slapped her gem with her hand.

"Wait right here! I'll be back." She scrambled down the barn's ladder and disappeared, materializing roughly five minutes later with a thick, blue notebook and several markers in her hands.

"Here," she said, dumping her offerings on the couch and plopping down on the floor to catch her breath. "You can—you can make your own observations of the episodes in here." Peridot pointed to the notebook. "And...since my insightful commentary isn't going to distract you this time around, I expect to hear your opinion on every last detail."

"Hmm, alright." Lapis picked up the journal and began scribbling in it with a blue marker. She cleared her throat upon finishing. "My thoughts on Episode One: Paulette is really cute."

"See, exactly! Just write what you—wait, _what?"_

"Also, Pierre is boring," Lapis continued. "And Percy's hair looks stupid."

"No, no, no!" Peridot shot up and flailed her arms in the air. "No, that's _not_ what you're supposed to write!"

"It's my journal, isn't it?" Lapis said. "Why are _you_ telling me what to write in it?"

"Hmm...then I suppose the only way to change your mind is to let you watch the episodes free of any extraneous disruptions." Peridot picked up the remote, jabbed the rewind button, and headed back to the couch.

 _I don't care if you're on the yellow team, Percy. We can make this work._

 _It's color war, Paulette. Doesn't that mean anything to you?_

Lapis crossed her arms. "Oh, please, Percy. As if Paulette would want a senseless jerk like you."

Peridot sighed, sinking back into the couch. Evidently, reconciling Lapis's opinions with her vastly superior ones was going to take a while. But Camp Pining Hearts was worth it. Carefully pointing out all of the wonderful subtext between Percy and Pierre in each episode was worth it. And the blue gem sitting next to Peridot, hugging her knees with her eyes glued to the screen, occasionally letting out a snort or a chuckle and offering her own interesting, albeit depthless commentary on Percy's haircut or the pointless background music?

Peridot gave a small smile. She was worth it, too.

* * *

 _I personally enjoyed writing Peridot's rants_ — _I hope they aren't too boring or tedious to read, though! Also, Lapis x Paulette. OTP. Right up there with Percy x Pierre._

 _The bit about Season 5 being set at the beach was a reference to a zine by Lauren Zuke and Mira W. that was sold at San Diego Comic Con. Simply googling "Steven Universe zine" and clicking on the first link should bring it up! I recommend looking through them, they are full of cute art and comics. Also, yes, I know the zine states that Percy appears in the second season, but the zines aren't canon; I just drew a bit of inspiration from them. :)_

 _Thank you so much for reading! Until next time. :)_


	5. A Cut Above Homeworld

_Midterms are killing me, but writing this fic has always been a nice break! Hopefully you enjoy reading it just as much. :) Also, yes, the title is a pun. Geology puns are very important to me._

 _Once again, thank you for the support!_

 _EDIT: It has occurred to me that some parts of this chapter may seem a bit OOC or out of the blue because I did not clearly give the connection or meaning behind these bits of dialogue. Upon some kind suggestions from Da Aimerable, I was able to fix this by elaborating a bit on Lapis's response to Peridot about the tablet! I apologize for any confusion that may have ensued from this chapter; I hope it's a bit more understandable now!_

* * *

 **A Cut Above Homeworld**

 **(i.e., Maybe Peridot Cheated, but That's Beside the Point)**

Lapis was deeply invested in the Season Two finale of Camp Pining Hearts when Peridot paraded into the barn clutching her prize from Funland, her tablet floating inches above her left shoulder. Peridot could tell Lapis was nothing short of amazed at the sight.

"Huh," she muttered, glancing up from the television. "That looks new."

Peridot beamed. "That's because it is!" She clambered up the ladder and hopped onto the couch, setting the plush alien in between them. "Lapis, turn off the television! I have so much to tell you."

Lapis stared at the screen, resolute. "Wait. I think Paulette's about to find out who stole her hiking boots."

"What?" Peridot huffed. "This is much more important! Who cares about Paulette?"

"Everyone except you. She's the show's main character, Peridot."

Peridot sighed. "Fine. I mean...it's not like the leader of Team Green stole them and framed Percy as the thief to make Paulette mistrustful of him."

That certainly wrenched Lapis's gaze away from the screen. She frowned at the green gem. "Wait, what? Why would you tell me that?"

Peridot shrugged. "And it's definitely not plausible that they want to incite accusations and hostility between the other teams by stealing all their possessions. They _obviously_ do _not_ want to gain the upper hand in capture the flag by hindering the capacity of cooperation among each team. And _of course_ they weren't the culprits behind the disappearance of Pierre's rowing oars, either." She chuckled. She was getting to be quite skilled at this 'sarcasm.'

Lapis stared at her in disbelief. "Did you really just spoil the entire episode for me?"

"Nope, not the entire thing! I didn't even tell you about the part at the end where Paulette does _not_ find out about Pierre's—"

"Alright, alright!" Lapis sighed and jabbed the pause button. "Just make it quick."

"I'll attempt to be brief! So, as you already know, Steven invited me over to his place of residence today. Not a very tactful move on his part considering that was where I was formerly imprisoned, but I'll forgive him for that. He gifted me this." Peridot pointed to the device hovering near her. "A _tablet._ It's not as intricate as Homeworld tech—nothing on this planet ever is. But you'd be surprised at what it's capable of! It can capture and store images and play music—at the same time! You can also inform others of events pertaining to your life in a series of compact logs known as _cheeps._ See, you just press this button here and—"

"Peridot. Brief," Lapis reminded her, crossing her arms. She cast a longing glance at the frozen frame of Paulette's distraught face on the television screen.

"Oh! Right. I will inform you of the cheeps at a later time, then. So, as I was saying, I was visiting Steven when Amethyst happened to walk in on us. The two had apparently planned to take me to a place called Funland _._ A source of human amusement filled with various devices such high-speed transportation circuits and... _games._ There's really no functional purpose to it."

Lapis fiddled with the remote in her hand and gave a small smile. "Does anything on Earth have a functional purpose, though?"

Peridot laughed. "Valid point. Anyways, Amethyst and Steven insisted that I join them in riding a _roller coaster,_ and I obliged. But then I was denied entrance by the clod managing the place! I'm supposedly too short to ride. Can you believe it?!"

Lapis laughed, leaning back against the arm of the couch. "Nope. Unbelievable."

Peridot thrust her arms out. "Precisely! I didn't save the Earth for this," she grumbled. "So after I waited for Steven and Amethyst to disembark this roller coaster, we encountered a booth filled with rings and bottles. That's where I met.. _.it."_

Lapis tilted her head in confusion. "It?"

Peridot squeezed the plushie in between them by the waist. "This! Just look at it. Its large eyes amplify its compassionate gaze, its massive cranium signifies its remarkably high intelligence capacity..." she sighed contentedly. "And its soft texture and inclination to yield to pressure makes it rather comfortable to embrace." She gave the alien another squeeze to demonstrate her point.

Lapis crossed her arms. "That's interesting. Can I find out what happens to Paulette now?"

"No, wait! I'm almost finished! Ugh, am I the only one who knows the importance of patience?"

Lapis snorted. "Patience. Right. Because you nearly broke the television this morning when one of the tapes wouldn't play."

Peridot frowned. "For your information, I was simply dislodging it from its slot to increase playback efficiency."

"With a hammer?"

"It was the only object directly within my radius!" Peridot cried. She cleared her throat, ignoring the heat creeping up in her cheeks. "Anyways, I didn't simply receive this prize. I earned it by achieving the objective of the game at the booth: to position the rings over the bottles without direct contact from a substantially large distance. Oh, I know what you're thinking: 'oh my stars, Peridot, how did you _possibly_ manage to consecutively get ten rings around those bottles without touching them?'"

"Actually, I was wondering what would happen if you just walked up and put the rings around the bottles when no one was looking."

Peridot waved her hand dismissively. "Close enough. Well, I'll tell you! It was with my newfound power of bending metal to my will!" Peridot grunted and stretched both of her arms out in front of her; her tablet slowly began inching over the couch to Lapis in midair.

"Woah." Lapis's eyes widened a bit. "I just assumed that was supposed to float."

The green gem shook her head fervently. "Nope! So essentially, I manipulated the rings in a similar fashion to this." She twirled the tablet around with her pointer finger, beaming.

"So...you cheated."

"That's beside the point, Lapis! And following that vein of logic, Steven and Amethyst 'cheated' to ride the roller coaster as well."

"How?"

"They simply adjusted their heights to match the ride's requirements via, er..." Peridot trailed off, becoming uncharacteristically quiet. Her shoulders slumped. The tablet sunk nearly a foot in the air.

Lapis frowned. "Shapeshifting?" she finished. Peridot nodded.

"Then why didn't you just change your height, too?"

A tense silence filled the air as Peridot's tablet stopped floating altogether and plummeted into the blue gem's lap.

"Uh, Peridot?"

Peridot dug her nails into one of the couch cushions. "I can't."

"You can't shapeshift?"

Peridot shook her head. "Why do you think I had limb enhancers before those clods stole them from me?"

"Because you're an Era 2 gem," Lapis said.

Peridot scowled. "Then why did you ask me if you already _know_ what I'm incapable of?"

Lapis held her arms up in defense. "I thought they were for fighting since Era 2 gems don't have weapons. Didn't know they couldn't shapeshift, either."

"Well, I did." Peridot glared at the ground. "And yet I still foolishly attempted to alter my appearance several times today. I thought, perhaps if I tried hard enough..." she shook her head. "Look at me. Look at my stature. You know exactly where I belong in the Gem hierarchy. It was futile for me to try and change that."

"Hmm...have you ever seen a Peridot win a ring toss?" Lapis asked suddenly.

Peridot turned to Lapis and furrowed her brows in confusion. "Why would I? Homeworld doesn't have games."

"But if they did. Do you think any would get the rings around the bottles?"

Peridot considered this. "Hmm. An interesting proposition. Probably not initially—it would take them some time to calculate the best trajectory at which to throw the rings." She chuckled a little at the ridiculous image of Era 1 Peridots crowding around the ring toss booth, their postures rigid and expressions austere as they attempted to swing the rings at the bottles like it was some sort of mission the Diamonds had sent them on.

"Would they consecutively get ten rings around those bottles? Without touching them?"

Peridot laughed. "Highly unlikely!"

Lapis raised an eyebrow. "Really? 'Cause I could've sworn you were bragging a minute ago about doing just that."

Peridot grinned and stood up on the couch. "I suppose you're right! Homeworld's hierarchy doesn't matter here! And I have yet to see a gem who can match my incredible ability to—oof!" Her tablet had sensed her excitement and rocketed out of Lapis's grasp, hitting Peridot square in the face.

Lapis sniggered as Peridot grumbled and rubbed her forehead. "Impressive. So...what exactly does a tablet do?"

Peridot blinked. "What about the episode you wanted to finish?"

Lapis shrugged. "It can wait. Now answer my question. Isn't that how conversations are supposed to work?"

Peridot gaped at her in wonder. Ever since their time at the barn together, the blue gem had hardly shown any discernible signs of listening to her, preferring instead to give the occasional shrug or roll her eyes and look askance. And yet here Lapis was, throwing back at Peridot the very information she had given to her more than a week back.

So she _was_ listening. She just had an unconventional way of showing it.

But Peridot supposed the rest of this planet's inhabitants were just as unconventional in showing how they felt. Many things could find refuge on Earth, but convention certainly wasn't one of them.

Her gawking quickly morphed into a smile. Yes, that was exactly how conversations were supposed to work. Lapis was finally beginning to understand! She eagerly grabbed the tablet and set it on the lap of the alien in between them.

"Tablets are highly versatile devices," Peridot said. "They can be used to store images, conduct video transmissions, and log one's thoughts on a human database known as...the _Internet._ But personally, I find the most intriguing aspect to be the ability to watch the published broadcasts of Earth beings." She jabbed the TubeTube app and resumed playing the cat video Steven had shown her earlier that day.

Lapis squinted in confusion as a series of yowls emanated from the tablet. "Why was this documented?"

"That's exactly what I asked!" Peridot shook her head. "Humans really have nothing better to do with their time."

"Wait, what's that?"

"Huh?" Peridot looked to where Lapis was pointing. "It appears to be a...recommendation. 'Dogcopter Dances to Crying Breakfast Friends Theme for Ten Hours.'" She frowned. "What's _that_ supposed to mean?"

"There's only one way to find out."

Peridot nodded and pressed the thumbnail. "I suppose there's no harm in watching just one more video."

* * *

 _It's 3 A.M. Peridot and Lapis are watching a fringe documentary on snake people. They've delved into the weird side of TubeTube, but they suppose just one more video wouldn't hurt. Little do they know that they're in too deep. There's no means of escape for them now. I mean, seriously_ — _Peridot and Lapis would totally watch weird videos into the ungodly hours of morning._

 _Anyways, thanks for the read! I'll be back with another chapter soon enough :)_


	6. Doesn't That Make You Excited?

_Hello! WINTER BREAK IS FINALLY HERE THANK GOD. I hope you guys have a wonderful holiday season! :)_

 _This chapter is based off of a series of posts from Peridot's official Twitter account, peridot5xg. Peridot hears a revving noise in the distance (which is actually Stevonnie racing Kevin in Beach City Drift) and decides to investigate by making her way up to the roof (with a trash can lid, according to her tweets) and seeing if she can find out the source of the noise. Sadly Peridot's account has not been in use since August, but the tweets that are on there are still super fun to read. If you haven't already, I highly recommend you go check the account out!_

 _Anyways, hope you enjoy the chapter! Thanks so much for the support._

* * *

 **Doesn't That Make You Excited?**

 **(i.e., Peridot Really Doesn't Take a Liking to Cars)**

Peridot gave a series of strained grunts as she clenched her fists and focused on moving the trash can lid she was standing on top of just a bit higher. The top of the barn's roof hovered in and out of view. Her tablet floated by her side; the two were virtually inseparable now.

 _"Almost! There...!"_ She squeezed her eyes shut in concentration.

"Peridot?"

"Gah!" Peridot's eyes snapped open. Her balance faltered as the lid under her feet wobbled and she plummeted to the ground. Lapis peered down from the roof, frowning.

"Uh, what are you doing?"

"Trying—" Peridot huffed, dusting herself off, "—to gain a vantage point. I heard something within the barn's proximity that resembled the noise of Steven's disgusting pink feline." Peridot shuddered. It was beyond her why Steven kept that terrifying beast around.

"Wait, so you're saying Steven's here?"

"That's what I want to find out," Peridot said, hopping back onto her trash can lid and slowly making her way up to the roof once more. "And what my millions of adoring fans of my Internet logs want to find out as well."

"Millions?" Lapis snorted. "You only had eleven yesterday."

"I never said that!"

"You didn't have to, it's right on your profile. And for the record, 'clods' isn't exactly the best password."

"Rrrrgh, whatever," Peridot snapped as she neared the roof once more. This time, she was careful to keep her eyes open to avoid any more surprises.

"Ha!" she exclaimed, leaping over to the rooftop, her tablet floating triumphantly behind her. She snatched it out of the air and began typing up her next update. "...on...the...roof," she informed her eleven devoted fans. "Used...a...trash...can...lid...to...get...up...here." She hit the post button and bounded over to Lapis.

"So? Do you see anything?"

"Yeah. You. In my personal space."

Peridot crossed her arms and huffed, but backed up a few steps nevertheless. "You know what I mean! Do you see any people?"

"No, but..." Lapis squinted. "there's some weird light over there that—"

 _VROOOOM!_

Lapis's shoulders tensed for a few seconds; Peridot jumped nearly a foot in the air before peering below the roof, scowling.

"See?!" she said, pointing downwards. "There's our culprit! It's disrupting the peace and quiet at our beautiful reclusive Diamond-and bathroom-free countryside barn!"

Lapis crossed her arms. "Sounds like a car."

Peridot jerked her head around to stare at Lapis. "What is...a _car?"_

"It's a machine. Humans use it to travel places."

Peridot frowned. "And _you_ know about this Earth device? And I _don't?_ " she asked, wondering if Lapis was simply bluffing her. There was no possible way Lapis could have learned about Earth's transportation methods before she had. After all, Peridot herself still hadn't solved the mystery of the 'bicycle' (there wasn't a single button or switch she could find on the apparatus to turn it on. Human transportation was ridiculously inefficient, just like everything else on this planet).

The blue gem shrugged. "Steven told me about it. We went to this place called Jersey. It was swarming with cars."

"Ugh." Peridot shuddered, imagining the obnoxious cacophany a place teeming full of these _cars_ would create. "That sounds awful."

"Not too bad," Lapis admitted. "Apparently everyone there hates Earth, too." She gave a snort.

Peridot narrowed her eyes. This gem was more confusing to comprehend than a Pearl manning the cockpit of a fighter ship.

"Do you...really _mean_ that?" Peridot asked.

"Mean what?"

"That you hate the Earth. I thought you wanted to stay here!"

Lapis frowned. "I was trapped here for thousands of years, Peridot. You really think I'm in love with this place?"

Peridot threw her arms out in frustration. "You weren't trapped on the _planet,_ though! You were trapped in the _mirror!"_

Lapis's spine went rigid. "The only reason I was trapped in that mirror was because I got caught in the Earth rebellion. Earth was my prison."

"Then why did you stay?"

"Steven," she responded almost immediately. Peridot's mouth snapped shut. She knew upon that that she didn't have to question Lapis any further; she simply sat down next to her and nodded understandingly.

 _Steven,_ she thought, staring at a blackish-purple blotch of the night sky overhead. As odd as the gem-hybrid was, he had an uncanny knack for keeping people together, despite how radical their differences were (Steven _had_ to be the link—Peridot could not imagine how two utterly dissimilar gems like a Pearl and an Amethyst could possibly get along otherwise).

"He didn't tell me I had to stay here," Lapis continued. "He gave me a choice. I can't go back to Homeworld, but..." She shrugged. "I guess that just gives me a chance to see the rest of this planet and find out what's so great about it anyways."

"You...you don't have to do that alone, you know."

"What do you mean?"

"Well..." Peridot hunched over slightly, secretively cupping a hand over her mouth. "Don't tell anyone else, but there's actually a lot I still don't know about Earth. Shocking, I know."

"Absolutely."

Peridot frowned. "I hope that wasn't sarcasm."

"Oh, of _course_ not."

"You're impossible," Peridot grumbled. To her surprise, Lapis simply started snickering. Perhaps her sarcasm was a way of expressing her desire for friendship rather than denying it—apparently, not saying what one meant actually had versatile applications apart from just making Peridot hopelessly confused. It made her head hurt just to think about it.

"Ahem. Anyways, what I mean is that this planet is definitely..." Peridot trailed off, trying to think of a way to describe her new home away from Homeworld. "...something else," she decided. "It's not like Homeworld at _all._ I mean—look at us! A _Peridot_ and a _Lapis Lazuli_ gazing leisurely at the stars together? Homeworld would never allow that. Imagine trying to explain shirts to them! Appearance modifiers that aren't melded to your body? It's preposterous! Or—or the television. Can you imagine the Diamonds watching _Camp Pining Hearts?_ Or going to _Funland?_ Ha! Lapis, there's so much stuff here on Earth that Homeworld's never known! And so, extending that logic, there's so much stuff that _we've_ never known. And now we have the freedom to explore it. All of it. And we can do it _together!_ Doesn't that make you excited?"

Lapis stared at Peridot, tufts of dark blue hair waving slightly in the night's gentle breeze as she did so. She looked...vulnerable, almost. Far from the surly gem who had once despised her and absolutely refused to hear Peridot out.

"I...never thought about it that way," she said finally. She gave a slight shrug. "I _guess_ that's exciting to think about."

"Exactly! Here!" Peridot grabbed her tablet and stretched her arm out in front of them. "I will commemorate your revelation through a _photo_ to share with the Internet. Here, do you think this angle will successfully capture us both?"

"Hmm...a little bit up."

"How's this?"

"Little to the left."

"Your left or my left?"

"They're both the same, Peridot."

Peridot cleared her throat. "I knew that. Okay! Now I just have to press the image capturing apparatus on the side of the tablet opposite to us, and...there!" She held the tablet in between her and Lapis.

They both looked down at the screen. Peridot had successfully managed to capture a few strands of blue hair in the lower left corner of the picture and a single, blurry, green finger in the upper right. A huge, inky patch of night sky lay in the center, the stars smudged and slightly out of focus.

Lapis furrowed her brows. "Uh..."

"I know, I know!" Peridot beamed. "It's beautiful. Almost too good to share, but I don't want to keep my fans waiting." She promptly uploaded it to her account with a few taps and then set her tablet down to stare up at the sky.

Homeworld's galaxy still shone up there, as bright as ever, serving as a reminder of where they were. The breeze whistled softly in the background, making the trees shiver so slightly it was almost imperceptible. Peridot and Lapis sat there in silence, but it was no longer the strained, gloomy kind that loomed over them when they had first been left alone at the barn. It was more comfortable now. More...understanding.

For Peridot, silence had always meant a lack of comprehension between both parties. Conversations were valued. Communication was _important._ Being a technician by profession, expressing her progress through logs and data briefings were vital. But for right now, under the mild, tranquil night so unlike any she had ever witnessed on her Homeworld, the silence was oddly fitting, and Peridot supposed that it wouldn't hurt her to just keep quiet.

Just this once.

"I think the car is gone now," Lapis said, interrupting Peridot's thoughts.

She nodded. "You're right, I can't hear it anymore. Thank the _stars_ for that. But...it's actually kind of nice up here."

Lapis smiled as Peridot slowly inched a little closer to her. "Yeah. I guess it is."

* * *

 _I don't hate you, Lion! Peridot is just...having trouble warming up to you. Especially since she almost drowned in your mane on her trip to the Moon, lol. Also, I'm a sucker for stargazing scenes. I just love the atmosphere of them. :')_

 _Anyways, thank you for reading! I hope to be back soon with another update :) See you then!_


	7. One Gem's Trash Is Another Gem's Morp

_Wow, last chapter of the year! My research for this chapter was reading transcripts of and watching the first half of Beta over and over again to glean whatever info on meep-morps I could out of canon. So yeah, that was fun!_

 _Anyways, hope you enjoy another chapter of interactions between these two dorks! Thanks for the read!_

* * *

 **One Gem's Trash Is Another Gem's Morp**

 **(i.e., This Is Peridot and Lapis's Greatest Invention yet)**

Peridot couldn't recall when exactly, but Lapis's visits to the silo had slowly become less frequent.

There was no definite date marking it; it was a gradual process. When Steven had first left Peridot with her, the top of the silo was Lapis's sole place of residence. She would refuse to respond to any of Peridot's methods to coax her down. Yelling didn't work. Apologizing didn't work. Even _jokes_ didn't work (or maybe Lapis simply failed to recognize how genuinely hilarious it was that this 'chicken' crossed a 'road.' Perhaps it would be better if Amethyst demonstrated that one to her). Slowly but surely, however, Peridot's remarkable capacity for friendship had inevitably led Lapis to take leave of the silo.

But now the silo was back, making its presence known by fitting snugly into the gaping hole in the barn wall Peridot had made months ago with her robot.

"Hmm." Peridot stared at the giant structure butting into the barn's interior and frowned. "Perhaps this wasn't such an ideal plan. The barn seems less...ventilated now."

"Don't care," Lapis replied, arms crossed. "Filling up that hole was your idea. And I'm not moving that thing back."

"How did you move it in the first place?"

Lapis shrugged. "It's filled with water."

"Well, it's also made of _metal,_ " Peridot said, giving the silo a few raps. "So, if you'll excuse me, _I_ will move this by _myself_ since you're refusing to cooperate. _Hnnnnngh!"_ She squeezed her eyes shut and thrust her arms out in front of the silo, a strained grimace of concentration plastered to her face. "How—am—I—doing?" she asked through gritted teeth.

Peridot could practically _hear_ Lapis raising an eyebrow in response. "It hasn't moved an inch."

The green gem opened her eyes and let her arms go limp as she plopped down onto the barn's floor. "Well—well, that's because I've decided that it's grown on me!" she declared, her chest heaving in exhaustion as she glared at the silo. "I suppose I could get accustomed to this view."

Lapis simply gave a quick laugh in response as she scanned the room. "I never realized how much junk is in here," she said, nudging a spare tire on the floor with her foot.

Peridot scoffed as she got up. "It's not _junk,_ Lapis! Sure, maybe it has no functional purpose, but—"

"So it's junk."

 _"No!_ Rrrgh!"

"Then what is it?"

Peridot considered this. "I would say the purpose of all this is..." She trailed off and narrowed her eyes, catching sight of a leaf resting on top of a box next to Lapis. She bent over and picked it up, scrutinizing it. "Hmm. Primarily aesthetic."

Lapis stared at her. "What?"

"It's like—" Peridot racked her expansive vocabulary in search of a word to describe her thoughts; she could find none. "Like music!" She said finally. "But for your vision spheres! I don't know how else to explain it!"

"Okay, now you're making no sense. Not that you were in the first place."

Peridot shook her head fervently. "No no no! Lapis, I'm onto something here! I think I've figured out how to put all this _junk_ to use. Here," she said, thrusting the leaf she was holding in front of Lapis. "When you look at this leaf, what does it remind you of?"

Lapis plucked the leaf out of Peridot's grasp and dangled it in front of her face by the stem, frowning. "Uh...it reminds me of the time Steven gave me this leaf."

Peridot grinned. "Excellent! Now we're getting somewhere!" She began digging through the box she picked up the leaf from. "How about— _oof!_ How about this?" she asked, struggling to pull out a rather large baseball bat.

"That reminds me of the time I played baseball."

"See? Yet another fond memory!"

"You thought you were going to die."

"Ha!" Peridot laughed nervously, shoving aside her not-so-fond memory of waiting out that blunderous baseball match against those nasty Rubies. "That's...beside the point." She cleared her throat. "What I am _attempting_ to say is that every object here can be associated with a memory of some sort! Perhaps it's not always pleasant, but the emotional imprint it leaves is exceptionally powerful! Homeworld never had anything like this!"

"So...what are you saying I should do with this leaf?" Lapis asked, twirling it around in her hand.

"I'm _saying_ you put it on display! Show the rest of this planet what this _leaf_ means to _you!_ How its vibrant shade of orange represents the intensity of your desire to explore Earth! How the multitudinous veins branching from its stem show all the different possibilities this planet has to offer! How this slight fringe at the lower right illustrates—"

"You're taking this way too seriously. It's just a leaf."

Peridot huffed indignantly. _"You're_ not taking this seriously _enough!_ This," she said, thrusting a finger at Lapis's hand, "is incredible! This is a breakthrough of phenomenal proportions! It's my greatest invention yet! This is...hmm." Peridot trailed off, frowning. "What would be an appropriate name for this?"

"Meep-morp," Lapis decided promptly.

Peridot blinked. "What?"

"You should call it meep-morp."

"Hmm. _Meep-morp,"_ Peridot echoed, enunciating each syllable and weighing how the new term felt on her tongue. "I love it! I like the cut of your gem, Lapis Lazuli!"

Approximately thirty minutes and three boxes of 'junk' later, Lapis and Peridot were sitting cross-legged on the floor, sifting through their findings.

"Lapis! Lapis, look!" Peridot produced a mitt and a ball from one of the boxes sitting beside her. "I've uncovered two additional apparatus used in baseball for your meep-morp!"

"Huh? Oh—thanks." Lapis reached a hand out towards Peridot's offerings.

"You're welcome!" Peridot grinned as she saw Lapis's other hand draped over a small, rectangular object. "And I see you've found more viable morp material as well! What is it?"

"Oh! Uh—" Lapis promptly shoved the object behind her back. "It's nothing," she said hastily.

Peridot crossed her arms. "That wasn't _nothing!_ What is it? Just let me see!"

"You...really don't wanna know."

Peridot snorted. "That's absurd! Of course I want to know!"

"No. You don't. Trust me."

 _"Trust_ you?" Peridot sputtered. "How can I _trust_ you if you hide things from me? What happened to us bonding up on the roof the other night? Does that just not _matter_ anymore? Stop being so—so elusive!" She threw her arms out in frustration. "I see no reason in your secrecy! I thought we were finally _friends!"_

 _"Okay._ Fine," Lapis snapped. She grabbed the rectangle she was hiding from behind her back and pushed it towards Peridot. It skidded across the floor, stopping an inch or so in front of the green gem's feet.

"...Oh," Peridot said. It came out unusually small and quiet. She gingerly picked up the object laying in front of her.

Her old tape recorder. She examined the various dents on its surface, running her fingers across them. She felt parts of the exterior bulging out and caving in in places it shouldn't have been. The interior fared no better. She peered in through a sizable crack on the side of the device; the colorful wires inside were hopelessly frayed, one of the two wheels meant for holding the tape snapped completely in half. It was no longer usable for its intended purpose.

It was _junk._

"When you gave it to me, I thought it was worthless," Lapis said, making Peridot snap to attention, startled.

"Ah, yes," she managed weakly after a moment or two of terse silence. "I do remember you referring to it as _garbage."_

"Yeah." Lapis refused to look at Peridot, instead choosing to trace the grooves of the wooden planks below her with her finger. "I didn't know much about Earth back then." Her fingers curled into a fist. "And I still don't. But I'm trying." She sighed. "And I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm so—"

"It's okay."

Lapis's head shot up, her gaze meeting Peridot's. "Wait, what?"

"It's okay," Peridot repeated. "You were confused. You were scared. You had no idea what to do or where to go. I know how _that_ feels. You said it yourself. This planet was your prison. And for a while...it was _my_ prison too. And even if I no longer have a way of documenting my experiences, I still have someone to share them with. But wow, thanks for the apology regardless." She cleared her throat. "I...I appreciate it." She gave Lapis a smile that the blue gem delivered back to her after a good minute of staring at Peridot in shock. Peridot, however, felt relieved more than anything; so they _were_ friends, then. She couldn't have even _conceived_ the notion of Lapis apologizing to her even a week ago, but this planet seemed to love harboring the impossible.

And Peridot had grown to like it, actually.

Not that she'd ever admit it.

"Besides!" Peridot continued as she got up, "I still think this tape recorder is perfectly feasible material to construct a meep-morp out of! Perhaps I could use it in a piece regarding the struggles of intercommunication. I'll entitle it, 'Wow, Thanks.' What do you think, Lapis?"

"I think my baseball meep-morp is better."

Peridot grinned. "Is that a challenge I hear you proposing?"

Lapis got up, twirling a bat around in her hands as the beginnings of a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. "Maybe."

"Well, I accept!" She crouched down and rummaged through her findings, setting the tape recorder aside. "May the best morp win—although we both know it'll obviously be _mine."_

Peridot looked up just in time to catch Lapis smirking back at her, a box filled with baseball equipment nesting in the crook of her arm.

"There's only one way to find out."

* * *

 _I've thought that the silo was filled with grain for the longest time, but apparently the Steven Universe Wiki says it's a water silo, so I just wanted to clear that up by having Lapis mention it._

 _Leave it up to Peridot to overanalyze things, lol. She'd make a great art history student. Half the stuff is commentary on the most minute details and what they supposedly represent._

 _Anyways! Just a fair warning: the next chapter will most likely be a little less light-hearted than usual, because how would this be a Lapis-Peridot fic if I don't mention their reactions to the events of Alone at Sea. I don't wanna get too specific and spoil the chapter, but I'm trying to go for a more somber, hurt/comfort-esque tone. See you then!_

 _I also appreciate all of the support; it really keeps me going, so thank you! :)_


	8. It's Okay

_THE ANGST HAS ARRIVED. I apologize._

* * *

 **It's Okay**

 **(i.e., Peridot Sees No Point in Lying to Lapis)**

Of _course_ Peridot was familiar with the concept of _crying._ She had seen Steven cry on several occasions.

It wasn't aesthetically pleasing, to say the least. His face would contort and his vision spheres would swell and redden, rivulets of water leaking from them continuously as his scent sponge emanated a viscous, foul-looking slime. The reasons behind him crying were quite miscellaneous and mystifying to her: a dermal abrasion on his left gravity connector; a corrupted Gem abomination he had no desire in poofing or bubbling; an immensely confusing television program about despondent human foodstuffs that Peridot saw no point in getting emotional over.

Peridot herself had only ever cried once: on the trip down to the Cluster with Steven. A longing for Homeworld had flooded her mind, and before she could fully realize it, she felt an inexplicable pang in her chest and drop of moisture slightly blurring her field of vision. Fortunately for her, she had wiped it away before the dreaded side effects of swelling and dripping kicked in (or perhaps that was something that only happened to humans due to their fragile, primitive structure. Either way, that was one thing Peridot _didn't_ want to research).

So, in conclusion: yes, Peridot had cried. And of course she had seen others cry—singing, crying, and fighting seemed to be the only things the Crystal Gems ever did.

But Peridot had _never_ seen Lapis cry.

And she was terrified she was about to.

While Lapis was out on her excursion, Peridot realized she had nearly forgotten what solitude felt like—quite ridiculous of her, considering she was made for jobs requiring a fine deal of solitude, but this planet was filled with naturally gregarious beings, humans and Gems alike. It didn't allow her to have much space for herself.

Alone for the first time in months, she tried occupying herself with a _frisbee_ (which she was relieved to find out did not have anything to do with actual bees), but soon concluded it was designed to be enjoyed by more than one participant. She settled for Camp Pining Hearts soon afterwards, but taking notes on Percy's battle tactics for capture the flag simply didn't seem the same without someone snarking about his "ridiculous haircut" in the background (not to mention that the cloddy maple syrup plothole in Season 4 was absolutely ridiculous). Eventually, she was reduced to lying flat on her back on the floor, lazily twirling her fingers around to make a few spoons hover weakly in the air. She had practically rocketed out of the barn upon seeing a familiar figure hovering in the distance, suspended in the sky by translucent wings that glimmered a yellowish-orange in the sunset. Lapis had finally returned.

Except she hadn't, really.

Lapis had come back to the barn after a day out with Steven, tight-lipped and snappish and eerily disoriented. Peridot was used to receiving answers from her that were barely a sentence or two long, but this time, all of Lapis's replies were exceptionally terse.

"Lapis! How was your trip?"

Lapis blinked rapidly, her gaze vacant until Peridot asked the same question for the third time in a row. "Oh! It was—" she broke off, wrapping her arms around her waist as if she were attempting to hug herself. "It was okay," she managed finally.

 _"Okay,"_ Peridot echoed, narrowing her eyes in suspicion. "And you? You are... _okay_ as well?"

She could barely hear Lapis's response as she turned her back towards Peridot.

"Yes."

Peridot stamped her foot in frustration. "No, you're not!"

Lapis whipped back around, her dress flapping behind her. The water in the pool adjacent to Peridot began to tremble violently.

"Are you trying to tell _me_ how _I_ should _feel?"_

"I—!" Peridot squeaked and took a trembling step backwards upon seeing the dangerous glint in Lapis's eyes. "No, I just want to know what's wrong!"

The water shot up from the pool as Lapis lifted her arm, forming a massive hand that loomed over Peridot's form.

"You know _exactly_ what's wrong," she said, advancing towards Peridot. Lapis didn't even seem to be looking directly at Peridot, though; her wild, unfocused gaze was darting all over the barn wall Peridot had backed herself up against.

"We shouldn't even exist," Lapis hissed. The hand above Peridot curled into an angry fist. "You made me feel terrible. I made _you_ feel terrible!"

"Uh...Lapis?"

"So why do I miss you?! I thought I was doing okay, but you just keep _coming back!_ Stop saying this is a good idea! Stop telling me how I should feel about it! Malachite's never been anything but _trouble!"_

"Lapis, I'm not—"

"You're not what? You're not _sorry?_ I'm not sorry for anything I've done to you, either. You _deserved_ it. I'm not your prisoner anymore. Now you're _my_ prisoner! _I want you to know how it feels!_ "

The fist of water came plummeting down at an alarming speed, but Peridot was fortunately able to find her voice just in time:

"I'M NOT JASPER!"

She had screamed it louder than she had intended to, but it seemed to have the desired effect. Peridot coughed and spluttered as the fist above her went limp and fell apart, drenching her.

"Jasper," Lapis murmured as she dropped to her knees, her eyes unusually wide. "You're...you're not Jasper."

"I'm well aware of that," Peridot said, wiping away water from her visor. "Although it appears that _you_ aren't."

"I...almost hurt you."

Peridot nodded, pushing herself off the wall she had been leaning against. "Perhaps. But it's... _okay."_

"You don't have to say that."

Peridot blinked. "What?"

"You don't have to _lie!"_ " Lapis's gaze refused to meet Peridot's. She took a deep, shaky breath as she knelt down in the grass. "I know I'm hurting everyone. I know I'm just as awful as she said I was, I know that—that—!"

Her voice broke off, and that's when the first tear came.

It dripped down Lapis's cheek, a barely audible sob escaping along with it.

When Lapis cried, her nose scrunched up and her teeth clenched together. Her eyes squeezed shut and her fingers curled up to form rigid fists. It was almost as if at any moment, her entire body would ball up and condense itself into nothing—which of course Peridot knew was impossible, but still didn't make it any more of an agreeable sight.

Steven's sobs were loud.

Lapis's were soft and hidden away, almost.

It made Peridot feel dreadfully small.

"You're...you're not awful," she managed once she was able to speak again.

"Shut up."

Peridot took a hesitant step forward. "But—"

"You're. _Lying."_ Another shaky breath.

Peridot exhaled sharply in frustration, throwing her arms in the air. "Ugh! Why would I be _lying?!_ What would I possibly achieve from _lying_ to you? What even makes you think you're so _terrible_ in the first place?!"

Lapis shot up, giving a sharp, hollow laugh. "Oh, like you think I'm completely innocent. I stole this planet's ocean. I nearly drowned Steven, and then I broke his dad's leg. I destroyed your tape recorder. Go on! Tell me I've never done any of those things."

"...I can't, though," Peridot muttered meekly, twiddling her thumbs. "That would be lying."

"Exactly! I'm _horrible._ You don't have to pretend that I'm not. I've destroyed and broken and hurt so many things. And...and when I was trapped down at the bottom of the ocean with Jasper, bound as Malachite, I..." Lapis trailed off, the painfully vacant look in her eyes returning. "I fought to keep her down and she lashed out at me and I lashed out at her and..." her eyes narrowed, her fingers clasped tightly against her stomach.

"It was awful," she whispered hoarsely.

Peridot nodded, gingerly taking a few more steps towards Lapis. Wet grass and dirt squelched unpleasantly beneath her toes. "I...I can imagine. It sounds atrocious. You two are evidently an incompatible pair."

Lapis snorted humorlessly and wiped her eyes. "Tell me something I don't know."

Peridot bit her lip. "Did you...happen to meet Jasper today? I mean—!" Peridot shook her head. "You, uh, don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," she added hastily.

"It's okay," Lapis responded just as quickly. She sat down cross-legged on the grass, and Peridot followed suit.

"I...did meet her, actually," she said after brief yet almost unbearable lapse of silence. "We were on a boat. She just kind of sprung up out of the ocean."

Peridot raised an eyebrow. "That...doesn't surprise me, honestly." Leave it to Jasper to find her way out of the _center of the Earth_ —where she was supposedly headed to the last time she was seen, according to Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl's briefs on battling Malachite—unfazed and still ready to have her way. Her unwavering determination almost impressed Peridot, in an oddly insufferable sort of sense.

Lapis nodded. "Yeah. Doesn't surprise me, either."

"What did she even _want_ from you?"

"To fuse," Lapis said, looking down and interlocking her fingers.

"...And I'm assuming you didn't want to."

Lapis's frown deepened. "Well..."

Now it was Peridot's turn to frown. _"What?_ You _wanted_ to stay with her?"

"No! I don't! I..." Lapis sighed. "I feel like I _have_ to. I was just stuck with her for such a long time—we were _Malachite_ for such a long time, I—it just feels like something bad is about to happen if I'm not with her. I've been fighting against her for so long, it feels like I'm doing something wrong if I'm not bound to her."

"...Oh, uh." Peridot blinked and cleared her throat, trying to form an intelligible sentence.

"Um. Wow," she managed finally.

Lapis scowled. "Stop staring at me like that. I don't want anyone to feel _sorry_ for me. I'm sick of feeling trapped, I'm sick of being everyone's prisoner, I'm sick of always having to— _Peridot what are you trying to do to me."_

Peridot scoffed as she stood, stiffly sandwiching Lapis's shoulders between two arms. "Oh, please, Lapis, don't tell me you don't know what a _hug_ is. I've seen you administer them to Steven on several occasions."

"Pfft!" Lapis snorted. "I know what hugs are, you're just really bad at giving them."

"Oh, well, _pardon me,"_ Peridot grumbled, pulling away. "I was just attempting to be reassuring."

"That's..." Lapis's shoulders relaxed a bit as she gazed up at Peridot. "...kind of nice of you, actually," she muttered.

Peridot smirked. "Ha! Well, I am known for being exceptionally generous."

Lapis rolled her eyes. "Don't let it go your gem."

Peridot grinned sheepishly and plopped back down onto the wet grass, her knee brushing slightly against Lapis's.

"You know," she said softly as they both watched the sun sink in the sky, "despite your uncertainty regarding it, I prefer you unfused. I'm sure Steven would agree."

Lapis considered this in silence; her eyes still seemed tired, but much more focused than they were earlier. Focused on Peridot. Slowly, a faint smile appeared on her face. "Yeah?"

Peridot nodded firmly. "Yes. So...you mentioned you broke this 'Dad' human's leg earlier?"

Lapis's smile gave way to a confused frown. "Uh...yes?"

"Ha! That's _nothing!_ I'll have you know I pushed him off the barn roof once."

"I—what?" Lapis snickered and elbowed the green gem sitting next to her. "Why do you sound so _proud_ of that?"

"I do _not!_ I'm just saying that the intense remorse you display for your actions is unnecessary."

Lapis's laughter faded out. "Are you sure about that?" she said. "I have so many problems..." She looked down at her lap, twisting her dress around her fingers. "I'm a _mess,_ Peridot."

Peridot snorted. "Who cares?! This entire planet's a mess! It's so erratic and disorganized! It's _ridiculous!_ In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really _matter_ if you make mistakes on here. What matters is that you learn from them. For example! Pushing Steven's _dad_ off the roof helped me learn that not all Earth beings are capable of flight, and that I should proceed with caution in handling them so as to not injure their extraordinarily weak physical forms. What have you learned, Lapis?"

"That..." Lapis took a deep breath. "That maybe it'll take a while, but one day, I'll stop thinking about her. I'll stop thinking about Malachite." She shook her head. "Actually, no. Maybe I'll never be able to forget it. But maybe one day, it'll be easier to handle."

Peridot smiled. "I'm certain it will. And what else have you learned?"

"That I never want you to hug me again."

"Hey!" Peridot cried, glaring at Lapis. "That was uncalled for!"

Lapis smirked. "I've also learned that maybe some gems aren't as bad as they seem at first...I guess."

Peridot's eyes narrowed in confusion. "Wait, what do you mean _some_ aren't—oh." Lapis was staring right at her, still smiling lopsidedly, an eyebrow raised.

Peridot cleared her throat, doing her best to ignore the unreasonable amount of heat emanating from her cheeks as she watched the first stars appear in the night sky and mumbled out an "I've learned that about some gems as well...I _guess."_

* * *

 _AaaAAA I don't know why but I've been really nervous about posting this chapter? Like moreso than when I usually post chapters? I just really hope it turned out okay._

 _Kudos to you if you can find the references to Peridot's Twitter I slipped in here (they're literally all in the same paragraph but you know, lol)!_

 _I did my best to take into account the self-hatred and strange emptiness Lapis expressed regarding fusing with Jasper and the aftereffects of fusing with Jasper from Alone at Sea._ _I also tried to balance the dialogue and the introspection. I wanted to strip descriptions down to a bare minimum during their conversation to get the somber tone of it across. I hope it worked effectively._

 _Anyways, thank you so much for reading, and thank you so much for the support! I'll be back soon enough! :)_


	9. Like the Backs of Our Gems

_Hello! Are you all excited for the next Stevenbomb (probably not, honestly, since pretty much everyone's already seen it. I'm desperately trying to tough it out until January 30, lol)? AAA it seems so good._

 _Thanks for the read! :)_

* * *

 **Like the Backs of Our Gems**

 **(i.e., The Paint Cans Are Not the Best Option for Peridot. Trust Lapis on This One)**

"LAPIS!" Peridot frantically waved her arms to signal her location to the blue gem above. "I found the car!"

Lapis floated down to the grass and furled her wings back up. "Great. Did you find your common sense, too?"

Peridot frowned. "What? That's not a tangible object. Hmm...unless you're referring to Camp Pining Hearts, Season three, Episode two, Common Sense, which arguably shows the most subtext between Pierre and Percy as of yet—I mean did you _see_ the way they gazed intensely into each other's vision spheres during that arm wrestling match—"

"I _know,_ Peridot. You wouldn't shut up about it."

"Well, how _could_ I when the two were conjoining hands and on the verge of declaring their undying attraction for one another?! They were _this_ close, Lapis." Peridot showed Lapis approximately half an inch of space between her thumb and index finger. _"This! Close!_ And then that clod Paulette butted in. She ruins _everything."_

Lapis rolled her eyes. "That's because _Percy_ likes _Paulette."_

"No! Percy is simply oblivious to her needy, manipulative tendencies and—" she shook her head. "Never mind. You'll find out soon enough through my 1,001 page dissertation on how Paulette is the _scourge_ of Camp Pining Hearts. Once it's ready for publication, that is. It's a, uh..." Peridot cleared her throat. "Work in progress."

"Can't wait," Lapis deadpanned.

Peridot snorted. "Wow, don't _you_ seem excited."

"Just about ready to poof."

"Heh!" Peridot sniggered a bit behind her hand as she caught Lapis cracking a small smile. Perhaps sarcasm wasn't all that bad. It proved to be quite humorous at times, actually. When it wasn't directed at her intelligence, that was (which was admittedly a rare occurrence, but one she looked forward to nonetheless).

"Anyways," Peridot interjected, rolling her eyes, "before we went off on _that_ tangent, I was about to ask you to help me move this car back to the barn. It'll make a perfect terrace for the television!"

Lapis raised an eyebrow skeptically. "Uh...yeah. About that. How did you think you were gonna make it stay there, anyways? Just shove it right through the wall?"

"The direct approach!" Peridot clasped her hands together, grinning. "Excellent idea!"

"What—wait, no, I didn't actually mean—"

Peridot leapt onto the truck behind her, hands on her hips. "Give me a lift, Lapis! Oh, Steven and Amethyst are going to be so _impressed_ when they see all of our renovations! I just know it!"

Lapis sighed in defeat as she sauntered over to the back of the vehicle, giving it a push. "Absolutely shocked."

Peridot soon learned that the barn wall was surprisingly compliant. The front of the car fit in quite snugly above the entrance, and Peridot only earned three splinters in the process (which was significantly less than the fifteen plus the scraped knee she had gotten while making her last morp. She had soon decided that this _wood_ was a terrible medium for meep-morping). She took a step back on the truck's platform and leaned against the newly-relocated television, admiring her and Lapis's handiwork.

"I believe— _ow!_ I believe that's the last of the modifications for now!" Peridot said, yanking a small piece of barn shrapnel out of her thumb. "So? What do you think?"

"Hmm." Lapis poked at a Camp Pining Hearts tape lying near the television with her toe. "That this looks stupid."

"Incorrect response! I think what you were really trying to say is 'Peridot, this was an excellent idea! I truly appreciate your architectural genius. And your superior intellect in general. Also, I take back everything I said about Paulette being an enjoyable character. You're absolutely right, she is a _menace.'"_

"Wow, you know me so well," Lapis muttered as she rolled her eyes.

"Like the back of my gem, Laz!" Peridot winked, tapping her forehead. "Like the back of my gem."

Lapis snorted. "Right. So, why was that car out there, anyway?"

"Because Amethyst took it for a... _joyride_ along with the tractor before Steven and the other Gems left for the temple. At least, that's what he told me when I asked him where it went. _'Oh, it's probably somewhere around the barn!'_ " Peridot snorted as she plopped down onto the truck's floor. "Ha! _Duly noted,_ Steven. He didn't even provide me with a proper radius! Really, I wouldn't have found it if it weren't for my exceptionally keen eyesight."

"Wait," Lapis said, frowning. "You talked to Steven?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Yesterday. Why?"

"I didn't see him yesterday, though..." Lapis trailed off, her shoulders tensing slightly. "Did—did he not let me know on purpose?" She took a stiff step backwards. "Is he avoiding me?"

Peridot shot up. "No, no! Not at all! Steven told me he can't wait to see you!"

 _"And how did he tell you that?"_

"Pssh! Via tablet, of course! How else?"

"Hold on. You're saying that you talked to Steven," Lapis said, pointing to tablet strapped to Peridot's arm, "through _that_ thing? The thing we watch videos of cats on?"

Peridot rolled her eyes. "It's not just for cat videos, Lapis!"

Lapis shrugged. "Yeah, I guess you're right. There was that one movie on something called snake people on there."

"Ugh." Peridot shuddered as she recalled pressing _that_ thumbnail. Watching humans cloak themselves in shirts resembling reptilians while ranting fervently about the Diamond Authority (or a gross misrepresentation of it, to be more precise) was...unsettling, to say the least. "Let's...refrain from mentioning that one. Anyhow, as I was saying, Earth tablets are useful as a means of communication—even if they _can't_ retrieve data across multiple star systems." She proudly showed off her tablet-adorned wrist to Lapis. "So, basically, the audio and video signals from the device Steven is using to communicate with me get sent over here while mine simultaneously get sent to him, and we can talk to each other in real time! It's simple, really. Rudimentary technician know-how. One of the first things they brief you on once you emerge."

Lapis's index finger grazed a corner of the tablet. "So...he's on the screen? You can see him inside of there?"

"Exactly! You—wait, no!" Peridot's grin fell flat. "He's not, _uh,_ well— _trapped_...in there, if that's what you're referring to—ha! Not even close!" She gave a nervous chuckle. "Don't worry, despite the reflective qualities of the screen, I can assure you it's not a mirror! Certainly not a _gem artifact_ mirror, at that, and, uh—"

 _"Okay._ I get it."

"Oh! Well, uh, you're welcome! Here, we can call him right now to prove it to you."

Lapis abruptly pushed Peridot's arm away and walked over to the edge of the truck. "No thanks." The wind rustled her hair slightly as she unfurled her wings.

"What the—wait! Oof!" Peridot scrambled to the edge. "Where are you going? What's _wrong?!_ Steven's not trapped in there! I thought you told me you understood the concept!"

"I did," Lapis stated flatly. All Peridot could see of her was her back. Her gem glinted a bright blue as it caught a stream of the afternoon sunlight; her wings blocked the rest of the view the truck's platform had to offer of the countryside (which, granted, was nothing but a vast expanse of rolling hills, but Peridot could still appreciate the view. The undisturbed uniformity of it almost reminded her of a Kindergarten. Almost).

Peridot frowned. "Then what's the problem?" She squinted to catch sight of the hills through blurry sheets of water.

"I'm just..." Lapis's back went slightly taut as she gave a sharp sigh. "...not ready."

"...Oh." Even if she still wasn't quite sure about the exact details, this mirror ordeal had undeniably shaken Lapis up. And in all honesty, seeing Lapis zone out was making _her_ wince a bit as well. Peridot's shoulders slumped as she unstrapped the tablet from her wrist.

"You, uh..." She cleared her throat. "You don't have to do it if you don't want to."

"But I _do_ want to! I mean—I want to be able to want to." Lapis shook her head. "Does that make any sense?"

"None whatsoever."

Lapis snorted. "You're a real help, aren't you." She closed up her wings nevertheless. She took a seat on the edge of the platform, looking out at the hills.

"I try," Peridot admitted, making her way over to Lapis and plopping herself down, cross-legged. "You, uh...said you don't want to call Steven, but you still wish to have that capacity?"

Lapis nodded. "Don't know how else to explain it. There's...a lot of things I miss. Or that I wish I could still do."

Oh.

 _Oh._

"Oh."

Peridot stared down at her touch stumps—no, no—her... _fingers_.

Her 'real' fingers.

Or at least that's what they presumably were. That's what everyone told her they were. She slowly curled each one up until she formed two small fists, squeezing them lightly to feel the pressure induced by the contact; it was something she still wasn't quite used to yet. When the words finally came out of her mouth, they came out as a whisper.

"I think I understand."

Lapis sighed. "Limb enhancers, huh?"

 _"Gah!_ " Peridot jolted upwards and nearly fell off the truck. She scowled momentarily as she balanced herself, but it quickly morphed into gaping as her eyes flitted continuously from her fists over to Lapis. "How—? Did you...?"

Lapis looked back at her, unfazed. "I see the way you stare down at your hands sometimes. Or your legs." She shifted slightly on the ledge. "Like you're missing a part of yourself."

Peridot blinked. "Oh," she squeaked out, much higher than she had meant to. Apparently, that was all she was capable of saying at the moment. She unfurled her fingers, trying again. "Uh..."

"I've also seen you dance with those dumb paint cans on your feet."

Peridot quickly regained her composure and huffed indignantly. "They're not _dumb!_ They're _cool!_ They have flames on them!"

Lapis frowned. "Wouldn't that make them hot?"

"I...hmm. Valid point. One would think so."

"Mmm." Lapis pulled up one of her legs and rested her chin on her knee; the other dangled freely off the truck's edge. Peridot stared at her.

"Hey, Lapis?"

The leg swung back and forth rhythmically. "Yeah?"

"It's okay. If you're...not ready yet." Peridot cleared her throat. "I mean! I know _I_ wasn't ready to crash into this hunk of rock, lose all of my possessions, and essentially get stranded here." She stared at the leg. It had stopped moving. Lapis was looking at her more attentively.

"But that's alright," Peridot continued. "After all!" She shot up, hand placed triumphantly over her chest. "Us Peridots are _highly_ adaptable. And I bet Lazulis are as well. But—but it's okay if they aren't," she added hastily.

"Hmm." Lapis chewed on the inside of her cheek as she considered this, Peridot fiddling with her thumbs and desperately waiting for the silence to end.

"I want to call Steven," Lapis decided.

Peridot blinked slowly. "Wait. You're...serious?"

Lapis nodded. "I just...wanna try, at least."

"Um. Okay." She blinked again before shaking her head and breaking into a grin. "It'll be great!" she announced, thrusting a finger upwards to summon her tablet towards her. "We can just...just..." she trailed off as she unlocked the screen, her eyes widening in horror. "Juuuust _not right now!_ Oh my stars, they're arriving in less than twenty minutes!" The tablet clattered to the floor as Peridot started pacing across the truck. "We have to look casual. We have to look confident!" She frantically turned towards Lapis, her head in her hands. "We have to look _presentable!_ Lapis, quick! Go get the hairbrush or something!"

"Uh, no. I'm not using that thing again."

"But we have to _impress_ them! Appearances matter! Plus, look at your hair," Peridot grumbled, pointing to the unruly, blue mop on Lapis's head. "It's a mess."

"Yeah, and _yours_ defies gravity," Lapis shot back, frowning. "Like you're one to talk."

"Fiiine." Peridot waved her hand dismissively. "I suppose the unkempt look suits you, anyways. But what about _me?_ I need something amazing! Something that'll knock Steven and Amethyst right off their gravity connectors! Hmm...should I go with the paint cans?"

"No," Lapis responded immediately.

Peridot put a hand to her chin and frowned. "You're right. Those are _too_ cool. It'll overwhelm them, undoubtedly. This calls for something...more subtle. But what?"

"Wait," Lapis said, opening up her wings. "I have an idea." She promptly launched herself off the truck's ledge before Peridot could even formulate a response, leaving her no choice but to continue pacing the barn's new terrace, immersed in frustration and incertitude.

"Perhaps the paint cans _are_ the most viable option at this point," she muttered to herself.

"Trust me. They're really not."

Peridot yelped as she spun around and nearly stumbled over her own feet. Lapis stared back at her, unblinking and clenching something red in her hands. She thrust it in front of Peridot's face.

"Put this on."

Peridot took the bowtie. "Wow...thanks," she whispered, staring at it in wonder. "Bold, impressive, yet not too garish. Er...where should I put it?"

Lapis simply pointed to her collarbone and gave a quick nod.

She grinned and fastened it around her neck, giddy with excitement. Oh, this would _certainly_ knock Steven and Amethyst right off their gravity connectors (and even if it didn't, they still had their collaborative morp to show off. If _Occupied_ didn't impress her guests, Peridot quite frankly had no clue what would. The one-Gem band, perhaps: she had been working on her outstanding solo piece for four days, after all). She puffed out her chest, showing it off proudly. "It's perfect!"

Lapis bent down to adjust the bow. "It's also crooked."

Peridot simply beamed in response, continuing to fiddle with her newly-acquired appearance modifier. "You know me so well."

Lapis got up and winked, the smallest of smiles present on her face. "Like the back of my gem."

"Heh! Of course! So, uh," Peridot said, looking down at the bowtie, "where exactly did you retrieve this from? It looks oddly familiar...uh, Lapis? Lapis. Why are you staring at me like that? Lapis? Lapis... _Lapis!"_

* * *

 _"I dunno what it is about flames, but they just make everything cooler."_ — _Steven Quartz Universe, Log Date 7 15 2_

 _R.I.P. Peridot's Alien Plushie: July 20, 2016_ — _Aug 8, 2016. You will be missed._

 _Lapis and Peridot's shenanigans in Beta were adorable and I really wanted to capture that vibe. I'm also pretty sure Peridot was freaking out about impressing her "guests" prior to Beta and making a fuss over whether the barn was presentable or not. It just seems like something she would do._

 _Anyways, thanks for reading! I appreciate it very much!_


	10. Leader of the Crystal Gems

_Back again! Still trying to steer clear of leaks and such, which is kind of sort of REALLY hard because YouTube is rife with spoilery thumbnails. Wish me luck._

 _Anyways, thanks for the read! You guys are the best. :')_

* * *

 **Leader of the Crystal Gems**

 **(i.e., Peridot Learns That Tambourines Are Not an Optimal Form of Offense)**

"I know Rubies aren't exactly prized for their depth of perception, but I didn't know they were _this_ clueless," Peridot grumbled as she watched the Homeworld ship dwindle into a small, red speck in the sky. "A tan, Lapis!" she cried, twirling around on her heels to face said Gem. "She told them she was purple because of a _tan!_ And those cloddy... _pebble-brains_ believed her!"

Lapis stared back at Peridot, a small frown on her face as she sat cross-legged in the grass, her eyes half-lidded. Peridot could tell she was shocked beyond belief.

"Uh...isn't that a good thing?" she asked, idly wrapping a blade of grass around her finger.

"Maybe _presently,"_ Peridot said, pacing back and forth. "But it's just—rrgh!" She stopped momentarily to kick a clump of dirt. "It's just frustrating. Did they even _notice_ the gem on her chest? Have you ever seen a Jasper with _two gems?_ They're so dense! The Rubies, I mean. Although _Jaspers_ aren't all that bright either. Like meets like, I suppose." She gave a derisive snort. "No wonder those clods idolize her."

"...You're just upset that they came looking for her instead of you."

Peridot froze in her tracks and gave an undignified squeak. _"I am not!_ Why would I be desperate for attention from a lousy bunch of Homeworld foot soldiers? They're all pebbles! Lumps of cloddy dirt beneath my gravity connectors!" She scowled as she jumped on the clump of soil she was kicking, viciously attacking it with the underside of her foot.

Lapis raised an eyebrow. "Yep. Totally jealous."

"Stop it! I'm _not_ jealous! Who cares if those Rubies fail to acknowledge that I called their Diamond a clod right to her face? Or that I saved this entire planet from the brink of destruction? Or that I managed to singlehandedly poof the Quartz soldier they're all incessantly groveling over?" She waved her hand dismissively. "That's their loss."

Lapis blinked. "Poof a Quartz soldier? _You?"_

Peridot huffed. "Oh, don't act so surprised! I'm perfectly capable of defeating a Jasper!"

"Right."

"Really! Steven and Amethyst were there with me! Just ask them!"

"...I kind of can't," Lapis said, pointedly staring at the sky as she stretched out her legs.

"What?" Peridot glanced up as well before it hit her. "Oh." The Moon. "Right." She cleared her throat. "Well, fortunately for you, I'm here to recount the whole tale!"

"Lucky me," Lapis muttered.

"Lucky indeed! So, it all began in the Beta Kindergarten. Facet Nine. That place was a _total_ rush job—Homeworld was so bent on squeezing out more Quartz soldiers to fight against the Earth Rebellion that they resorted to incubating Gems in red sandstone. _Red sandstone!_ Can you believe it? We were lucky the place hadn't been rendered to dust from this planet's weathering processes by the time we got there."

Lapis frowned. "What're you trying to get at?"

Peridot rolled her eyes. "That this is probably the shoddiest Kindergarten ever made! I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own two vision spheres. So, naturally, I was magnanimous enough to devote some of my time to showing Amethyst around the place. She was...quite distressed about Jasper's physical superiority." She fidgeted with her hands a bit, wincing as she recalled every blow Amethyst gave Jasper, only for her to stand there smiling eerily and absolutely unscathed. The _perfect_ Quartz soldier. She shuddered. "Understandable, I suppose. But Amethyst is from the _Prime_ Kindergarten. The most impressive one on this entire planet! I figured a trip to the cloddy Beta one would help her feel more confident about her status."

"But isn't she defective?"

Peridot sighed. "She is. But I suppose in a way, we're all defective, Lapis."

"Mmm. Fair enough."

Peridot shook her head before launching back into her narrative. "So, we were all looking at Jasper's entry hole when suddenly, my acute Kindergartener senses tell me that one of the cavities in the sandstone's been recently dug out! It eventually turns out to be a whole series of holes, so we decide to follow them to identify the source, and would you believe it? There's a corrupted Gem monster seething in there behind a row of crudely constructed bars! It nearly attacked Steven, but I managed to pull him to safety at just the right time!"

"My hero," Lapis said flatly.

Peridot beamed. "That's me! The great and loveable Peridot—hero to all Gems, Gem hybrids, and other, significantly inferior life forms on this planet! But enough about my numerous, endearing attributes. Let's get to how I showcased them all in action during my battle of epic proportions with Jasper!"

"Yeah," Lapis muttered. "You really think I'm gonna believe you took her on by yourself?"

Peridot shot her a glare. "What, is it really that hard to accept?"

Lapis looked her right in the eye, her gaze so rigid and unblinking that Peridot couldn't help but shudder slightly.

"...Okay." She sighed, tearing her eyes away from her. She chose to glare at the grass below her instead. _"Fine._ Perhaps I had some assistance _intially."_

"So those two beat her up?" Lapis snorted. "I wish I could've seen that."

Peridot frowned. "That's a rather...blunt way to put it, but yes. They significantly pulverized her. Eventually, Jasper got so desperate that she resorted to, er..." She trailed off.

"To...?"

"I..." Peridot gulped. "Uh," she said intelligently. "You know." She proceeded to bump her fists together, hoping Lapis would catch on. She had used the J-word loosely multiple times already—she didn't want to potentially sour the conversation by using the F-word as well.

Lapis simply narrowed her eyes and frowned. "Smashing her knuckles together?"

Peridot sighed in exasperation. _"Fusion,_ Lapis! _Fusion!_ She dragged one of those Gem abominations out of its cage and fused with it!" She bit her lip as the last word escaped her mouth.

As Lapis straightened up a bit, Peridot let out a sigh of relief. She seemed to be more interested than offended. "What happened after that?"

"I—" She shook her head. "Allow me to backtrack for a moment first." She took in a deep breath. "Steven and Amethyst...they didn't simply beat Jasper alone."

Lapis rolled her eyes. _"Alright,_ Peridot. You were there. You saved everyone. I get it."

"No! I mean, I _did_ save everyone, but that's not the point! Steven and Amethyst fought her while they were fused!"

"...Oh." Lapis's eyes almost doubled in size as she finally lifted up those perpetually drooping eyelids of hers—and to top things off, she let out a low whistle. "Huh. Didn't see that coming."

"Imagine how _I_ must have felt, then! Did you know a Rose Quartz and an Amethyst form a Smokey Quartz? Of course you didn't!" She slapped her chest with a palm. _"I_ didn't!" Peridot sighed, running her hands through her hair. "They were so...so... _big!_ Enormous! Powerful! But I _will_ have you know I was the one who destroyed Jasper's physical form! You see, after she unfused, the corruption started seeping into her. Her appendages merged together, spiny protrusions erupted from her shoulders, and...oh, stars, I can't describe it anymore. It was _disgusting._ Anyways, she morphed into this hideous beast, annnd it goes without saying that Steven stepped in and tried to help her regardless," Peridot finished, rolling her eyes.

Lapis chuckled. "Classic Steven."

Peridot chortled a bit herself. "Of course. But then," she announced, her smile melting away, "suddenly, Jasper's enraged! Her feral instincts take over as she corrupts, she's just about ready to shatter us all, and so I valiantly step in, plunge a piece of metal through her form, and _poof!_ The leader of the Crystal Gems strikes again!"

"I'm pretty sure you're not the leader."

Peridot huffed. "Of course I am! It's just going to take a while to get a unanimous vote on it." She glanced furtively to the side before grumbling, "Pearl's really no help, you know. She's still in denial, but she'll be swayed sooner or later."

Lapis snorted. "Mhm. And why didn't the _leader of the Crystal Gems_ just poof Jasper before any of this fusion stuff happened?"

"Because I was _busy!_ Giving...encouragement." Peridot felt her face burn as she fidgeted with her hands. "To, uh, Smokey Quartz. And stuff."

"So you're saying they just wore her out and made it easy for you to poof her."

"Hey! Why don't you try destroying the physical form of a corrupted Quartz soldier? I mean—uh." Her mouth snapped shut as she realized what she had said.

Lapis's lips thinned into a taut line. "I'll pass."

"Um. Sorry," Peridot mumbled sheepishly, eyes locked on the blades of grass beneath her. "You've probably spent more than your fair share of time battling Jaspers." When she met Lapis's gaze again, she simply shrugged at her, eyes half-lidded once more; Peridot took that as acceptance of her apology and cleared her throat. "It doesn't really matter, anyhow. You could have done it in the blink of a vision sphere." She gave a loud sigh and began to trudge off. "I'll be in the barn if you need me. Although I _doubt_ you will."

She stopped when she caught Lapis getting up as well out of the corner of her eye.

"What's up with you?"

Peridot spun around to face her, glowering. "What's _up_ with me? _What's up with me?!"_ She threw her hands out in frustration. "I'm surrounded by Gems who can smash up warriors and shapeshift and lift up the entire ocean just by flicking their a touch stump, that's what's _up!"_

Lapis stared at her for a moment in confusion until her eyebrows lifted a bit. "Oh."

"And all I can do is push some cloddy scrap of metal a few inches forward and even _that_ took me almost twenty minutes!"

"Mmm."

Peridot sighed and crossed her arms. "And I wonder sometimes, Lapis. Even if I do have the power to bend metal to my will, is it even useful? Am I even useful? I know it's a ridiculous notion and everyone loves me regardless due to my irresistible charisma, but...a bit of brute strength would be nice as well. Especially since everyone else seems to have it. Does that make any sense?"

Lapis stared right past Peridot, twirling her fingers slightly in the air. "Sure."

She stamped her foot into the dirt and scowled. "Are you even listening to me?!" She sighed in defeat and turned around to head to the barn. "Rrgh, I should've known you wouldn't care about— _yipe!"_

Peridot blinked and gaped at the figure blocking her path: roughly her height and shape, with its fists clenched and its eyes vacant and pupilless.

"...Uh."

She narrowed her eyes and took a tentative step to the left, but it mirrored her movement and ended up obstructing her path yet again. As it moved, Peridot noted it looked bluish but glinted a bit in the sunlight as well, catching hues of orange and yellow on its reflective surface.

"Water," she muttered, raising her left arm and watching the water Peridot raise its right one in response. She turned around to stare at Lapis. "Did you...make this?"

Lapis didn't answer her question (they _really_ had to work on that sometime), choosing instead to unfurl her wings and launch herself up into the sky. "Fight it."

Peridot stared up at her, incredulous. "Pardon?"

"You said you wanted to get better at fighting. So do it." She flicked her wrist abruptly.

Peridot spine went rigid as she twirled back to face the water clone, which thrust a fist at her she dodged with barely an inch of space to spare. She backed away as the figure advanced, nearly stumbling over her own feet. "I—with what?!"

"Your powers, pebble-brain!"

Peridot shot Lapis a nasty glare from below. _"Excuse me?_! I'll have you know that my intelligence _far surpasses_ most— _gah!_ " She toppled over onto the grass and got a mouthful of dirt as her opponent kicked the small of her back. She spluttered and gagged as she got back up, but what really did it for her was the smug smirk of satisfaction she got aimed at her from above.

Peridot scowled for a few seconds before smirking right back. "Oh, you want a fight? I'll give you a fight!"

Unfortunately, she got a faceful of water clone fist before she could put her words into action.

But she was a Peridot.

And if there was one thing anyone should know about Peridots, it's that they were exceptionally resilient.

Oh, she would have her way. She'd make sure of that.

She wiped the water off her visor and stretched her arms out in the barn's direction, a resolute frown on her face as she sensed for the nearest object made of metal. It quickly morphed into a grin as she began to feel the tingling—it started at the tips of her fingers, eventually making its way to her hands and up her arms and shoulders. She tugged at the first object she found, beckoning it to come towards her. She saw it zoom out of the barn entrance, a blur of grey and white, and gave a triumphant chuckle.

Having metal do your bidding never got old.

...Except when the weapon you sought to arm yourself with was part of your one-Gem metal band.

A tambourine, to be exact. It screeched to a halt at Peridot's feet, and she picked it up right as her water counterpart kicked her square in the chest. She could feel the heat rising to her cheeks as she got up, scowling at the series of snorts and supressed titters she heard from up above.

"Quit laughing!" she snapped.

"Laughing? Who? Me?" Lapis was lounging in the air, her legs crossed as she hovered slightly. The hand over her mouth was doing a terrible job of hiding her smile. For the first time since Peridot had met her, Lapis was actually having trouble keeping a straight face.

And of _course_ it had to be because of Peridot's incompetence.

"Rrgh! This is _useless!"_ She flung the tambourine at her opponent, in frustration—only to gape in disbelief as it sliced right through the water, cutting the clone neatly in half. Perhaps her games of one-sided "frisbee" could prove a useful asset to her after all.

"HA!" she hollered up to Lapis. _"I win!_ You can come down now, I...why are you looking at me like that?" She frowned as Lapis smirked and raised an eyebrow. She shook her head. "No." Peridot turned back around just in time to catch the gap she had made in the clone mending. She blinked.

"...You've got to be joking me."

Lapis was not, in fact, joking her. Peridot grit her teeth as she ducked a punch and received a kick. "Rrgh! Just! Die! Already!"

She could hear Lapis yawn. "This is too easy."

She froze. That's when it clicked. If Peridot was making it too easy for her, then Peridot was also making it too hard for herself.

Years of Kindergarten training had taught her that there were various factors that played a part in producing Homeworld soldiers: temperature, rock type, atmospheric pressure. But in the end, it was the gemstone itself that determined the quality of the Gem made. Arguably their most powerful aspect, but easily the most vulnerable as well; even the most accomplished warriors had their entire existence hanging upon their gem. The Diamonds gave them a purpose; their gems helped put that purpose into actuality.

The _source._

That's what Peridot had to take out.

She summoned the tambourine back, swiftly dodged the next blow aimed at her, and angled her projectile approximately sixty degrees upwards. It soared through the air in a flawless arc (although Peridot hadn't really expected anything less), knocking Lapis just below her chest.

And right to the ground.

The clone dematerialized into a puddle and seeped into the soil with a sickening gurgle.

"LAPIS!" She ran over to where she had fallen, jittery with anxiety. Lapis was on her back, sprawled across the grass with her eyes closed. The only solace Peridot had was that she hadn't retreated into her gem—but that wasn't much. Lapis Lazulis weren't supposed to poof easily, anyhow. She bit her lip.

Clod.

 _Clod._

 _Clod clod clod clod CLOD._

Peridot cleared her throat apprehensively. "Lapis, if I, uh—caused you bodily harm with my projectile, it was—er, _unintentional,_ and—" she faltered and shook her head. "Oh my stars, who am I joking? It was completely intentional and I wasn't thinking clearly and I'm such a _clod_ and—"

"I didn't catch that last part. Mind saying it again?"

Peridot's mouth snapped open and shut a few times before she took a small step back and frowned. She narrowed her eyes. "...I'll pass."

"Suit yourself," Lapis replied coolly, and then proceeded to thrust a leg at Peridot and smack her right in the face. "There." She got up as Peridot rubbed her gem and grumbled incoherently. "Now we're even." She got to her feet, smoothed out her skirt, and opened up her wings.

"Lapis, wait! Um..." Peridot bit the inside of her cheek as Lapis froze her tracks and looked at her expectantly. "How, uh..." she swallowed. "How did I do?

"Hmm." She seemed to consider this for a moment before finally shrugging. "Not too bad. Maybe next time you meet a Jasper, you can throw a saxophone at her."

Peridot stuck her tongue out at her. "Very _funny."_

Lapis stuck her tongue out right back in response (although the fact that the rest of her face was practically expressionless seemed oddly unfitting). "I'll be on the barn roof if you need me," she said. A faint smile played across her lips as she turned her back to Peridot. "But I doubt you will."

Peridot could only bring herself stare speechlessly at the wet patch of dirt on the ground as Lapis shot up into the sky once more. When she finally found her voice again, it was a whisper, and all she could see of Lapis were a few tufts of blue hair poking out from the top of the barn. She slowly summoned the tambourine back to her; it dragged across the grass and jangled softly as it reached her hands. She kept her eyes on the roof the whole time.

 _"Wow...thanks."_

* * *

 _Ever since I watched The Kindergarten Kid, I felt like Peridot had improved a bit with using her powers, especially since she could barely lift a scrap of metal back in Earthlings, and then unhinges the legs of an injector from a long distance with ease when trying to capture the corrupted Gem monster. I'm all for Peridot opening up about her insecurities (and getting comforted about them!), and I feel like she would have been at least a bit insecure about her inability to fight before remembering that brains can be just as powerful as brawn (something she emphasizes repeatedly in Kindergarten Kid). I'm not the best at action scenes, but luckily that helped me make the "fight" a bit more awkward here, which was my intent because Peridot is definitely not experienced with that kind of stuff!_

 _These chapters keep getting longer, but I suppose that's a good reflection of how Peridot and Lapis barely got along at first and now all their interactions with each other last longer than they used to! Or maybe I'm just trying to convince myself, lol._

 _Anyways, thanks once more for reading! :)_


	11. Believe in Steven

_Okay AAA I keep saying this is a "series of short chapters" but this chapter is so long in comparison to the other ones it's like 3.5k words (the first seven chapters all fit comfortably in between 1.4k to 2k words). The chapters just keep getting longer and longer I apologize. Hopefully they're not too unwieldy!_

 _But anyways, thank you for the support! It means a lot!_

* * *

 **Believe in Steven**

 **(i.e., Peridot is Glad Lapis Doesn't Know About the Bees)**

If there was only one thing people should know about Peridots, it was that they were always incredibly focused on whatever task they had at hand.

If there was only one thing people should know about _Peridot,_ it was that she was always _ridiculously_ focused on whatever task she had at hand.

She had stayed in the exact spot for approximately one half of an Earth rotation, leaning against the barn's doorframe and grumbling incoherently (along with the occasional yelp caused by an unexpected injury) to herself as she fiddled with various bits of metal, the Camp Pining Hearts theme resounding right above her head the entire time. She didn't mind, though. For one, it meant that Lapis was actually _enjoying_ the show—not that Peridot had expected any less, though. Camp Pining Hearts was unarguably the apex of Earth culture, except for maybe shirts (which she most certainly did _not_ steal when Steven wasn't looking. And so what if she _did?_ Nearly all of his appearance modifiers looked exactly the same, anyways. He wouldn't know the difference).

What she _did_ mind, however, was the fact that these cloddy robots were absolutely refusing to follow her orders.

"You ready to call it a day yet?" she heard Lapis call from up above.

She tweaked the antenna at the edge of her controller and frowned. "Not quite."

"Huh. Okay. How about now?"

Peridot blinked. "Uh...no."

"Now?"

She scowled. _"No!"_ She grumbled and turned her attention back to prodding the useless spheres in front of her with her foot.

Lapis sighed. "Sucks to be you, then. It looks like Pierre and Percy are about to kiss."

"What?!" Peridot shot up and nearly stumbled over one of her drones. "You mean..." She inhaled sharply. "You mean, with _each other?"_

"Mhm," Lapis replied languidly, an arm propping up her face as she sat cross-legged in front of the television.

The controller dropped to the floor, forgotten as Peridot crossed her arms and huffed in irritation. "You're lying! I've personally documented every single interaction between those two and there's no _way_ I would have overseen—"

"Yep, they're going in. Paulette's crying. This is wild."

"What the—Lapis, I _demand_ you tell me everything that's happening onscreen right this instant!"

"You didn't say please," she pointed out, giving a slight yawn as she stretched her arms upward.

"Then I demand you, please!"

Lapis frowned. "...That kinda defeats the purpose of saying please."

"Ugh. Whatever." Peridot put a foot down on one of the robots, trapping it between the herself and the dirt. She should probably just destroy it and start over. "I'll find out for myself later. I have— _nngh!_ I have other priorities at hand," she said, struggling to crush the sphere underneath her. Curse her for making even the most useless piece of machinery flawlessly durable. She heard the _swoosh_ of wings slicing the air and Lapis's light chuckle as she repeatedly jammed her foot against the robot.

"What are you working on that's so important, anyways? You've been sitting there for hours."

"Attack drones!" Peridot proclaimed proudly before looking at the useless spheres arranged around her in a semicircle and deflating. "Well, that's what they're _intended_ to be, at least."

Lapis picked one up and stared at it, a hand tracing over the smooth, green surface.

"They're very...uh, round," she pointed out helpfully.

"Thank you—I think," Peridot said, frowning. She cleared her throat. "I figured it was about time we set up a defense mechanism of some sort for this place. We've left it unarmed for _far_ too long."

Lapis spun one of the propellers connected to a tubule sticking out of the drone. "Yeah, 'cause everyone wants to attack a barn on a planet at the edge of a galaxy in the middle of nowhere."

"Hey! It's important to take precautions! Besides, it's not just Homeworld Gems that could try to charge us." She narrowed her eyes. "You never know when the bees might arrive," she whispered ominously.

"Uh...what are bees?"

Peridot shuddered. "Be glad you don't know, Lapis. Be glad."

Lapis, however, just seemed to be confused.

Peridot simply shook her head dismissively and peered down at her robots with distaste. "Ugh," she said, picking up the remote from the ground. "I should have known this second-rate Earth machinery wouldn't live up to my standards." She jabbed the single button in the center of it repeatedly, each attempt only achieving to deepen the scowl on her face. "Work, you subordinate heaps of metal!" she hissed through gritted teeth. "Do my bidding! Rrgh, this is futile!" She slammed the controller into the ground and thrust her arms out in frustration. "I give—"

"Uh, Peridot."

"Huh?" Peridot looked up as the drone nestled in the crook of Lapis's arm shot up and began to hover a few inches over her head. Her eyes widened. "Oh my stars. _Finally!_ Success! And all it took was twelve hours and a few minor blows to the face of a particularly disagreeable spring!" She beamed. "Just wait until the others get a load of—wait, where's it going?!"

The drone's propellers spun madly as it whizzed upwards and away from Peridot, the others at her feet obliging to do the same. She grabbed her remote and ran in pursuit. "Come _back!"_ she demanded, incredulous. "I created you!"

She went as far as her gravity connectors could carry her, finally skidding to a halt near a sizeable tree as the drones hovered over her head. Peridot scanned the area apprehensively only to grunt in frustration. Not a single bee in sight.

"Stupid drones," she muttered, kicking at the air before glaring up at the sky. "There's _evidently_ no attacker present here and yet you _still_ manage to mess up the _simplest_ job possible and—"

 _Plop._

Peridot's mouth snapped shut as she rubbed her nose in awe, feeling the newly-accumulated drop of moisture on her face. Her eyes were locked on the sky now as she caught sight of more wispy, grey clouds gathering together through the cluster of hovering robots. More droplets began to pour down on her with increasing intensity; she stood there rigid as a board, afraid that she'd miss the phenemenon if she so much as blinked.

She knew it was a natural occurrence on this planet, but she had never expected to experience it again so soon—after all, the "natural occurrence" of Homeworld's orbit was a century, give or take.

But here she was, trembling slightly in the downpour even though Gems did not possess the capability of heat sensitivity like organic lifeforms. She slowly stretched out one of her hands, letting the water splash into her open palm.

"Wow," she breathed, rubbing her thumb and index finger together. "It's..."

"Rain."

"Ack!" She twirled around to meet Lapis, whose wings and eyes alike were both wide open. Peridot raised an eyebrow at her. "You know what _rain_ is?"

"Barely," came her reply, her head tilted upwards at the clouds. The bow on the back of her neck fluttered mildly in the breeze.

Peridot frowned. "I don't recall rain being an occurrence on Homeworld."

Lapis closed her wings up. "That's because it isn't. I saw it here on Earth." She tentatively offered her index finger to the downpour, letting droplets slide down her knuckles and form rivulets that flowed down to the tip of her elbow. "Thousands of years ago."

"Thousands of years ago..." Peridot echoed, staring down at the beads of water shimmering on the blades of grass below her. Her head jerked back upwards upon fully processing Lapis's words. "You don't mean—"

"During the Earth rebellion?" Lapis gave a small shrug. "Yeah."

"Hmm. I see," Peridot said bluntly—and yet she couldn't "see" in the slightest.

It was at times like this that she couldn't help but feel a pang of envy in rise up in her chest. She would try to piece together what little information she had been able to glean from the briefs on the Gem war (which admittedly, wasn't much—most of them were strictly material reserved for the Diamonds and the innermost rings of their court: the last spot one would ever expect to find a certified Kindergartner like herself at. The Diamonds' courts were no place for a Peridot). She would try to grasp the impacts of the rebellion on both parties involved. She would try understand. She _wanted_ to understand. But it seemed that all an Era 2 Gem could ever do was _try._ And the all the Era 1 Gems could do was casually shrug the war off like they had seen far worse.

...Perhaps they had.

"Are you gonna turn those off?" Lapis interrupted. She gestured to the drones, circling wildly up above them and violently slicing at the rain with their propellers. "I think they're attacking the sky."

"Oh." Peridot chewed her lip before giving a small, sheepish chuckle. "Heh. Perhaps I made the drones too sensitive to motion." She rubbed the controller's button slightly before pushing down on it; the drones all fell to the ground with a squelch as all she could bring herself to do was stare on in disbelief.

"You're joking me," she muttered. "They take _hours_ to turn on but they turn off practically instantaneously?!" She pressed down on a drone with her foot and glared at it. "Lazy, cloddy, deplorable, _useless_ —" she broke off into incoherent grumbling as Lapis snorted in the background.

Peridot sighed as the sphere below her continued to be unyielding. She set her foot down as her eyes traveled over to Lapis, still stretching a hand out to the rain.

"Does it, erm...does it feel any different now?" Peridot asked. "Than it did when you first experienced it?"

Lapis looked at her. "What?"

 _"Thousands of years ago,"_ Peridot clarified, leaning in a bit towards Lapis. "Brief me, Era 1. How was it back then?"

"...Oh." Lapis lowered her outstretched hand and put her other one to her hair, fiddling with the damp strands plastered to her forehead. "I...I don't know," she said finally, her voice soft and distant. "It was so long ago."

"Well, then," Peridot said, leaning against the tree trunk, "How is it _now?"_

A faint smile appeared on Lapis's face as a drop splashed on her forehead and trickled down the middle of her nose. She chuckled softly. "Nice."

Her mood quickly took a swerve as a streak of light shot down from the clouds, accompanied by an ominous rumbling. She gasped, her shoulders stiffening as she unfurled her wings.

"What...was _that?"_

Peridot practically kicked herself a foot away from the bark she was leaning on. "Oh, oh! I know! That's _thunder."_ She beamed.

Lapis blinked. "Wow, that really helps."

Peridot rolled her eyes. "Spare me the _sarcasm,_ Lapis. I'm not done yet! So!" She straightened her back, cleared her throat, and gestured upwards. "You see, whenever it _rains_ on this planet, huge discharges of electricity are emitted from the sky in addition to water. The sheer magnitude in temperature of these discharges heat up the surrounding air, thus pushing apart and expanding the space between particles present in the atmosphere and resulting in these reverberations from the sky. Quite simple, really! Steven told me all about it."

Lapis narrowed her eyes. "Steven told you about the _reverberations from the sky?"_

"Well—not exactly. His explanation was far more rudimentary. He said it was soup."

"...The rain is soup?"

Peridot frowned. "No, no! Don't be ridiculous! The _ocean_ is the soup."

"Right, 'cause that makes so much more sense."

"It was a model!" she cried. "Of _course_ there were discrepancies!"

"Mmm," Lapis said passively, leaning back against the tree and gazing up at the sky. She sighed.

"I miss him."

Peridot stared at her in confusion. "Who, Steven? You just saw him yesterday."

 _"You_ saw him yesterday," Lapis corrected her. "He left for the Kindergarten just as soon as he came."

"Oh." Peridot blinked. "I suppose that's true. But no matter! I'll make sure his visit is much more prolonged next time, if that's what you want."

Lapis smiled. "That would be nice. Just..." she sighed, the smile vanishing as quickly as it appeared. "Don't make him do anything he doesn't want to."

"What? I don't understand. Why would he not want to see you?"

"He's told me before," she stated simply.

"...Lapis, I _highly_ doubt that."

Lapis crossed her arms and tensed her shoulders. "He said that he feels like he only gets to see me when something bad happens. How else am I supposed to take that? Stealing the ocean, the Earth invasion, Malachite...I know he's right." She dug a heel into the wet dirt. "And I don't want him to get hurt again. Because of me."

Looking back at it now, Peridot would admit that how she had responded to that hadn't been particularly tactful.

...Well, it hadn't been tactful at all, actually. But Lapis hadn't kicked her into the next solar system for it, and for that, Peridot was glad. Instead, Lapis settled on shooting Peridot a glare as she started chortling uncontrollably.

"What's so funny about that?" she snapped as Peridot wiped a tear from her eye.

"Well—I mean—" Peridot stifled a snort. "You keep talking about all these bad experiences Steven's had due to _you,_ but you do realize _I've_ tried to kill Steven on several occasions, right? _Far_ more times than you have, might I add. And the next thing you know, I'm lodging in his bathroom! And then I'm drilling down to the core of the Earth with him! And then—" she snickered. "And _then_ we're trying to get a bunch of rings around bottles at an Earthling amusement arena to win some sort of plush human artifact! Which I'm confused about the sudden disappearance of, by the way," she added, her laughter subsiding as her mouth morphed into a frown. "I'm certain I didn't misplace it anywhere. But—" She shook her head. "That's beside the point. What I'm attempting to say is that, despite our belligerent beginnings, we've still managed to eventually have more pleasurable interactions with one another. And now I'm his... _friend."_

She paused for a moment, letting the weight of the (up until recently, _largely_ unfamiliar) word lie on her tongue, making her feel inexplicably big. "It's nice," she said finally. "You never know what can happen on this planet. And you can certainly never know what can happen with Steven."

"Huh." Lapis's shoulders relaxed a bit. "I guess you're right."

"Well, of _course!_ I'm always right."

Lapis rolled her eyes at Peridot's smirk and turned back to the sky. "I wonder what he's doing up there."

Peridot shrugged. "Oh, you know. Saving the planet. Battling Homeworld Gems. Throwing his shield in their faces—which, I will have you know, is _much_ more painful than it seems," she said with a wince before waving her hand at the air dismissively. "Typical _Steven_ stuff."

Lapis seemed unconvinced, one of her hands nervously tugging at the hem of her skirt as the other skimmed the expanse of the bark beside her. "Will he—be okay?"

"Oh, sure he will. The other Gems are with him and he's quite capable of self-defense. Strong and sturdy, just like a Quartz should be. And besides, it's not like it's his first time going to the Moon."

"It isn't?"

Peridot shook her head. "No, no. I should know—I accompanied him on his first trip." She looked out at the sunset, which was bathing them in soft hues of orange tinged with hints of grey as she let out a deep sigh. "Oh, the Diamond Moon base...it's incredible. Primitive, perhaps, but definitely built to withstand the test of time. Every architectural element was thought out perfectly." She crossed her arms. "It's just such a shame the plans inside of it were so... _questionable."_

Lapis turned around to stare at her. "Plans? Like a colony?"

She nodded. "Yes. The colonization of the Earth. Kindergartens, spires, galaxy warps—each strategically placed to make the most of the planet's surface area and constructed through a careful distribution of all the resources available here." Her fists clenched up slightly. "The entire planet would have been hollowed out upon completion," she said in a low voice. "No shirts, no rain, no Camp Pining Hearts. And definitely no Steven."

She let that sink into the silence between the both of them, just like the droplets burrowing their way into the crevices in the dirt, and, for a while, all that could be heard was the constant _plop, plop, plop_ and the the occasional clap of thunder until Lapis finally cut through the silence.

"You know, I never really cared for this place."

Peridot sighed. "I didn't either. It was just a hunk of rock accommodating a Homeworld experiment I was assigned to check on. But after I forged an alliance with the Crystal Gems...it was like something just... _clicked._ I mean—why spend all this time checking in on the cluster and frantically attempting to escape this planet when you could just as easily eradicate it and save the Earth's resources and organic life simultaneously? It just made no sense to me to destroy a planet out of _spite._ It's a waste of valuable materials!"

Lapis snorted. "So you really thought you could convince the Diamonds to spare this place by telling them about Percy and Pierre?"

Peridot whipped around to gawk at her. _"What?_ Don't be ridiculous!"

She slid down until she was sitting cross-legged on the ground, staring up at Peridot. "Then tell me what those 'valuable resources' you were talking about were," she said, quoting the air.

"Well," Peridot began, spreading out her arms, "there's several naturally occurring rock formations here that would be suitable for Kindergartens, for one. And the huge water to land ratio would provide useful in any hydraulic mechanisms or the construction of sea spires. And the organic life..." she faltered. "It, uh..."

Apparently, some organic life on this planet would consume other organic life to produce energy—needless to say, it was quite a shocking discovery. Peridot failed to see how anyone could _possibly_ eat the bees. Surely even Amethyst wouldn't resort to that. And it wasn't like Gems required consumption for survival, anyhow.

By the looks of it, Earth organisms wouldn't make the best soldiers, either. Soft and fleshy and vulnerable—and _humans_ couldn't even fly despite supposedly being the most advanced lifeforms on the planet.

It probably would have made more sense for her to be invested in the bees.

She sighed in defeat. "The organic life has no purpose in serving the Diamonds. Especially the humans. And yet, it's...strange. They're the ones I'm the most fascinated by. It's illogical!" She furrowed her brows and crossed her arms. "I'm contradicting myself, aren't I? There's no reason I should be so—"

"Peridot."

"—And that, too!" she cut in. "That's so strange as well! _Peridot,_ " she echoed, enunciating every syllable. _"Per-uh-dot._ Not facet 2F5L, not cut 5XG. Here, I'm just...Peridot! And you're just... _Lapis._ It's incredible!"

"You're rambling again."

Peridot huffed. "I prefer to call it _thoughtful expatiation,"_ she said, frowning. "But for your sake _exclusively,_ I'll stop there. You're welcome."

Lapis looked back at her, a lopsided smile on her face as the branches above her dripped down water onto her shoulders. "Do you wanna go back inside?"

"Er...do you want to?"

"Nah." She stretched her legs out. "It's pretty nice out here."

Peridot snorted and plopped down onto the grass with an unceremonious squelch. "I'm _so_ glad to know you enjoy being thoroughly drenched."

Although she supposed, in a way, she _was_ glad. Perhaps Lapis would use the smaller-than-average-sized lake for some purpose other than flicking Rubies out of the sky and creating water clones of Peridot (which were not _nearly_ as loveable as the original. Not even close).

If there was only one thing people should know about Lapis Lazulis, it was that they loved water, and it wasn't really a big deal for them to be around it all the time.

If there was only one thing people should know about _Lapis Lazuli,_ it was that it was a huge deal for her to soak herself in the rain.

And so perhaps Peridot couldn't help but feel big by being able to witness and comprehend something even the Diamonds couldn't.

"So..." she cleared her throat and looked across at Lapis, whose eyes were closed; she looked at peace. "Were Percy and Pierre really engaging in the action of 'kiss?'"

"What do you think?"

"...Is that a tentative yes?"

Lapis snorted and opened one of her eyes to peer at Peridot. "You're impossible."

Peridot grinned. "And this planet _loves_ harboring the impossible. I fit in perfectly! Oh—look!" She nudged Lapis's shoulder and pointed up to the sky. "There's the Moon." It lay fixed up there, a disk of brilliant white poking through the wispy clouds, too far away to see the remnants of the Diamond base or the Rubies or Steven's shield hitting one of them in the face.

Too, unimaginably far away.

Peridot rested her head in between her knees. "...You know, I'm starting to miss him, too."

Lapis's eyes darted from the sky to Peridot to the sky and back again. "I just hope everything is alright up there for him."

"Oh, don't worry," Peridot said firmly as a cloud drifted away lazily to reveal a sliver of the moon. "I'm certain he has everything under control. I believe in Steven."

* * *

 _Honestly I feel like a scene regarding rain was inevitable between these two. I also really wanted to explore Peridot's feelings about Homeworld_ — _in my opinion, her redemption arc was done brilliantly in canon. She believed in logically reasoning with Yellow Diamond to spare the Earth, only to realize the Diamonds were bent on destroying the Earth out of pure spite of what happened thousands of years ago, putting Peridot off and making her understand that there was only one way to protect the Earth, by cutting off her ties with Homeworld (and I suppose a few hugs and a little love from Steven may have helped as well, haha). I feel like she'd be a bit jealous of Gems who had experienced the Earth rebellion firsthand, what with being a nerd who prides herself on her knowledge of Gem history and such._

 _I'm about to start planning out the next chapter right now_ — _not gonna reveal too much except that_ _it involves two cameos and that I'm excited! See you then! :)_

 _As always, thanks for reading!_


	12. A New Kind of Shapeshifting

_...Wooow that Stevenbomb was an adventure! I could say a lot of things, but I'll keep it brief and just say this: FAMETHYST FOR LIFE. The Amethysts just made me so happy. :')_

 _Anyways, thank you for reading! There's a lot of things I enjoyed writing in this chapter, hope they're just as much fun to read!_

* * *

 **A New Kind of Shapeshifting**

 **(i.e., Peridot Does Not Understand What Lapis Finds "Funny")**

"Are you sure they're visiting _today?"_

"Sure I'm sure! Perhaps they're just having technical difficulties with their materials. Quartzes don't have storage units like Pearls do."

"...So this is all your fault."

Peridot scoffed. "This is no one's _fault,_ Lapis! You'll—oof! You'll thank me later."

They were both leaning on opposite sides of the barn's entrance, Lapis with a leg pushed back against the doorframe and the other planted firmly on the ground, Peridot desperately trying—and failing—to do the same. Her leg kept slipping off the frame. She eventually gave up and stood erect with both feet on the floor, her hands tucked into her shirt. That looked much cooler, anyhow.

Lapis raised an eyebrow at her. "Why did you ask them to bring _books?_ I barely know how to read this planet's language."

"And that's why I'm here!" Peridot beamed. "With my extensive knowledge on Earth linguistics, we'll have you _reading_ fluently in no time!"

"You spent twenty minutes trying to spell analysis yesterday."

Her smile quickly fell flat. "That's—! That's because it's a difficult word!" Her voice had risen nearly an octave in defense. "Why do the 'y' and the 'i' have the same sound? Can't they just adhere to one character?" She huffed. "Cloddy humans, they always try to make things so diffi—"

"Lapis! Peridot!"

Well, perhaps not all humans were so cloddy.

Peridot nearly whizzed out of the barn to meet her visitors as they stepped off of the warp pad. Steven was donning an armful of books stacked from his gem to his chin and his trademark grin plastered on his face. Peridot supposed Amethyst would have done the same, but two flimsy paperbacks were protruding from her mouth. She unceremoniously spit them out onto the grass.

"Yo. We got the goods."

Peridot grinned as Lapis picked up one of said "goods" out of the grass, pinching it by the front cover as the rest of the pages accordioned outwards. "Excellent!"

"Uh...is that a leather jacket?"

Peridot chuckled at Amethyst and took her hands out of her pockets, the sleeves cascading almost six inches downwards after covering the expanse of her arms. "I see you're especially impressed by my _cool_ shirt. Understandable."

"Actually, you look kind of—"

"Ridiculous?" Lapis offered.

"Pfft!" Amethyst snickered. "Pretty much. Y'know, Peri, I never thought anyone could make _leather_ look nerdy."

Peridot huffed indignantly as Amethyst cackled and Lapis told Steven it was nice to see him again. Steven responded likewise, tucked his stack of books under his chin, and balanced them with one hand as he stretched out the other to place consolingly on Peridot's shoulder.

"Aww, it's okay, Peridot. I think you look cute!"

That didn't help at all.

She was naturally magnanimous, however, and decided to forgive him as they all plopped themselves down onto the barn floor in a circle and Amethyst dumped their offerings right in the middle. She wriggled out of her _cute_ shirt and inspected the pile.

"Alright, homegirls. Here's the spread."

Steven hummed as he straightened the "spread" up into small stacks.

"Have you ever read a book, Lapis?"

Lapis blinked. "No. Peridot tried reading one to me, though." She frowned. "I still don't see what's so funny about a chicken crossing a road."

"Primarily because you don't know what a chicken _is,"_ Peridot said as she launched herself up to find their copy of _Jokes! How to Make People Laugh Around You Instead of Feel Bad_ (quite a mouthful, but a remarkable tool for discovering what humans found to be humorous: chickens crossing roads, skeletal structures without _guts_ crossing roads, and gratuitous flatulence. Peridot got more than her fair share of the latter from Lapis, however). She riffled through the pages and stopped near the middle. "Oh! How about this one? What's black and white and read all over?"

Amethyst's hand shot up. "Ooh! A zebra with a rash."

Peridot frowned. "Um, no," she said, lowering the book. "It's a newspaper. What's a _zebra?"_

Steven was about to open his mouth to enlighten her when Amethyst got up and cracked her knuckles, grinning. "Please, Ste-man. Allow me."

Her form promptly began glowing as she reshaped herself, finally solidifying into a striped, four-legged creature that Peridot could only assume was a zebra. It was, objectively, a significant waste of energy compared to the output.

But at least she wasn't _lion_ around.

Heh.

It had taken Peridot approximately three weeks to understand that joke.

"Hmm...impressive," she admitted, circling Amethyst and squinting at the bony protrusions melded to her feet. "Why do humans find other organic life forms so humorous?"

Amethyst swished her tail around. "'Cause animals are funny, man. All they do is sleep, eat, scream, and poop."

"Unless it's a sloth!" Steven chimed in. "Then they eat their own poop, too."

Peridot grit her teeth. "Organic life is _disgusting."_

"Hey, can't hate it if you never try it." Amethyst gave a snort through her grossly elongated snout and chuckled. "See, look at that! Lapis thinks I'm hilarious."

"No, she doesn't," came Lapis's reply as she quizzically poked the whitish, bristly mane of hair protruding from Amethyst's body.

Amethyst seemed unfazed. "Eh. you're right." Her form momentarily dissolved into light once more as she shapeshifted back to her default projection. "Nothing can beat the original."

"Um—so!" Peridot clapped her hands together and grinned in hopes of masking her horror at the thought of consuming one's own excretions. _"Books._ Let's see what we have here...How to Talc to People." She looked up at Steven and frowned. "You incubate talcs here?"

"What? Oh, no! It's talk. The l is silent."

Peridot narrowed her eyes at Steven. "That's ridiculous." She studied the cover once more and omitted the l this time. _"How to Talk to People."_

"Mhm! Step 1: think of what you want to say," he announced, pointing his index finger up explanatorily. "Step 2: say it."

"That's it?" Lapis asked. "There's way more than two pages in that thing."

Steven shrugged. "Uhhh, really big font?" he said, as if trying to convince himself.

"Hmm." Peridot set the book next to her. "Earth communication tactics. Useful. I'll file this away for later." She craned her neck towards the middle of their circle. "What else?"

"How about this one?"

She squinted as she read the cover. "The Unfamiliar Familiar. Er...isn't that contradictory?"

"Huh." Steven frowned. "I never thought about it that way." He shook his head and quickly started grinning again. "It's really good, though! It's part of the Spirit Morph Saga—it's my friend Connie's favorite. Just, uh—" he chuckled nervously. "—just make sure you read the series in the right order." He slid the book over to Peridot. "This is the first one."

"Out of...?"

"Counting spin-offs, prequels, graphic novelizations, and prequels of the prequels? Thirty-seven."

Admirable, admittedly. Peridot would have to consult with this "Connie" on Earth literature sometime. She stacked the offering on top of _How to Talk to People_ as Steven picked up a small, thick, yellow book and enthusiastically proclaimed, "And this one's _my_ favorite!"

"No Home Boys," Peridot read off of the cover before shaking her head and scowling. "These titles make no sense! Don't these _boys_ reside on Earth? Is that not their _home?"_

"Maybe they ran away to another planet," Lapis suggested.

"To do what?"

"Um." Lapis shrugged. "Start a rebellion?"

"Hmm. I suppose that would make for an interesting plotline."

"No, no!" Steven interjected. "It's not like that. The No Home Boys might live on Earth, but they don't have a home."

Peridot gave three rapid blinks in succession.

"...What."

"Like—like they know they belong _here,_ but they don't know what part of the planet they belong _to._ If that makes any sense."

Peridot scoffed. "That's ridiculous! If they're inhabitants of this planet, then they should easily have access to all parts of it!"

"But Peridot! Home isn't where you _are."_ Steven placed both of his hands over his chest and sighed dramatically. "It's who you're _with."_

"Daaang, Steven," Amethyst muttered, propping her feet up on a book. "You're like, maple syrup-level sappy today."

"I can't help it! I just watched Weeping Egg Cup apologize to Pining Grapefruit after three years of those two fighting! Three years! _Everyone's_ been waiting for this. And their song together...so many tears were shed," he whispered solemnly, his hands still plastered to his chest. "I just have a lot of feelings right now, okay?"

Amethyst snorted and ruffled Steven's hair. "Pssh. Whatever, weirdo."

"I think I get it."

They all turned to Lapis and stared in confusion. Peridot took it up an extra notch and gaped as well.

"What?" she asked, incredulous. "The Egg Cup's apology?"

"No. About...knowing you have a home, but not knowing where it is."

"Lapis, what are you talking about? This barn is our personal home away from Homeworld!"

Lapis exhaled sharply. "Homeworld. Heh. That's funny."

Peridot managed to squeeze out six rapid blinks this time.

 _"...What."_

"It has the word home in it," Lapis murmured to no one in particular. "But it's no one's home."

Steven frowned. "That's not funny, that's really sad."

Amethyst shrugged. "Eh, I dunno. Those Rubies seemed _pretty_ darn happy 'bout beatin' us into the dirt for their Momma Diamonds."

"That's because Rubies are made to serve the Diamonds," Peridot said, crossing her arms. "As are Peridots. And Lazulis. And Quartzes. _Everyone_ has a purpose. And to reshape yourself outside of that purpose...it's unheard of." She shook her head. "Well, until, you know—"

"Here," Lapis finished.

Peridot nodded. "Yes. Here. Although I suppose—"

"—That's not a bad thing."

"Er...yes," Peridot said, frowning in confusion. "That was... _exactly_ what I was going to say."

"Aww, look at you guys!" Steven squished his face in between his hands and grinned, going starry-eyed. "You're even finishing each other's sentences! You've grown so much."

Peridot blinked. "Actually, our hard light projections are usually of a default, pre-configurated height."

"She's shrunk, if anything," Lapis supplied.

"Ugh. Refrain from reminding me, please."

Amethyst snorted. "Nah, he means like, you've changed." She threw her hands up in the air and wriggled her fingers around. "Reshaped yourself outside of your purpose and junk."

"Hmm. I see." She turned to Steven. "But even _you,_ if I understand the concept of Gem hybridization correctly, are essentially a reformed, partially organic Rose Quartz, correct?"

Within a split second, Steven's smile quickly faltered and Peridot could feel herself shrinking.

She hoped she hadn't gone too far yet again.

When his voice finally came out, it was soft and uncertain. He gripped his shirt tightly right where his gem was located.

"I...I dunno, Peridot."

"Steven?"

It was only later that she would realize she had said it in unison with Lapis.

Steven was the original link between them. And even if they didn't need him as a mediator anymore, he was inarguably one of the organic life forms that mattered far, far, more to them than the others.

It was also worth noting that he disposed of his excrement properly.

He chuckled softly as Peridot and Lapis looked on and Amethyst touched his shoulder with a surprising amount of gentleness for an Amethyst—with a surprising amount of gentleness for _Amethyst._

"Steven," he echoed. "Heh. It's nice to not be called Rose for once. I feel like that's all I ever am these days."

Lapis looked at him curiously. "What do you mean?"

"I mean..." He sighed. "That's what Homeworld sees me as. The war's not over yet. Maybe we stopped the Cluster and those Rubies, but Homeworld's an _empire._ And I...I guess being out there...it made me realize just how big space really is." He sighed again and released his shirt from his iron grip, placing his hand on the floor. "We're gonna need all the help we can get."

Amethyst planted her hand on top of Steven's with a resounding _thwack._ "Quartzes stick together, man."

Peridot gladly joined in on the pact. "Don't worry, Steven. We _are_ the Crystal Gems, after all!"

"No we're not."

The mood in the barn seemed to shift entirely as they all realized that one of them was, in fact, not a Crystal Gem.

Peridot was the first to clear her throat and respond. "Oh— _right._ Er—"

Her mouth snapped shut in shock as she saw a blue hand rest right on top of hers with a slight _thwack,_ slender fingers drumming on her knuckles slightly. And even though Gems weren't sensitive to heat in the way humans were, Peridot could still register that the hand felt cool and slick and smooth. The fingers drumming on hers felt like droplets of rain.

She liked rain.

Peridot looked up at Lapis in wonder as she gave Steven a raised eyebrow and a lopsided smile.

"But you're still gonna need all the help you can get," she declared.

Steven's grin came back twice as large as it was before. "And I know I've got it. So, uh...you guys know what a comic book is?"

They did not, in fact, know what a comic book was, but Peridot was more than willing to try to understand the concept of densely illustrated panels with dialogue expressed through bubbles, and by the time Steven and Amethyst had taken leave, even Lapis seemed to have had her curiosity piqued. Perhaps it helped that the _comics_ had significantly less words than the Spirit Morph Saga.

She was curled up in a corner of the barn, a copy of _Pretty Hairstylist_ (which, considering the notable amount of hairbrush usage in, Peridot could only deduce as _funny)_ held up to her face. But the strangest part about the whole scene was that she looked...interested.

Curious.

Wide-eyed.

It was a sight to see.

As Lapis delicately leafed through the pages like the book was the most important thing that had been given to her, Peridot advanced towards her corner and gently sat down, propping her elbows on her knees and placing her head between her hands.

It was funny, really, how it was always the most seemingly insignificant items that held the most significant emotional value.

Peridot could appreciate that about Earth.

And maybe, just maybe, Lapis was starting to appreciate that as well.

"Uh...you're being creepy."

She didn't appreciate violation of her "personal space," however.

"Gah!" Peridot snapped out of her thoughts and shifted uncomfortably; she hadn't even realized she was staring. "Er—my apologies. I was just..." She fiddled with her hands. "Thinking," she said finally. "About what Steven said. About— _growing."_

Lapis raised an eyebrow, lowering her book slightly. "Yeah?"

"—And I admit, even if we have tried to put him or his planet in peril on several occasions...comparing that to our current interactions makes me realize what an incredible paradigmal shift has occurred within barely one Earth revolution and...er." She faltered as Lapis narrowed her eyes and frowned.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

She frowned back. Periphrasis was her strong point. Brevity was not.

But she could still try.

Reshaping yourself outside of your purpose was a never-ending affair on this ever-changing planet, anyhow.

She cleared her throat and began again. "It's _unbelievable,_ Lapis. We've witnessed so many things, gone through so many... _feelings_ and thought processes than we could have ever imagined—and perhaps they weren't the most enjoyable at times, but I'm presuming that's what being defective is all about. We've... _grown,_ haven't we?"

Lapis seemed to grasp what she was saying now, a small smile forming across her face. "Yeah. We have. But that still doesn't mean I'm using the hairbrush."

Peridot watched silently as Lapis ducked her head into her book once more, and the beginnings of a smile tugged on the corners of her own face.

She supposed she could live with that.

* * *

 _I really wanted an explanation for how Lapis got that copy of the book Amethyst was reading back in Crack the Whip in the Kindergarten Kid, so I figured another visit from Steven and Amethyst seemed imminent. Peridot trying to understand what humans find humorous (or learning about Earth culture in general) is something I need more of in my life._

 _This is my first time writing anything for Steven; I hope he turned out believable! I wanted to make him retain his youthful qualities while still showing the revelations/identity crisis he was having during Bubbled._

 _Kudos to you if you found all of the references to previous episodes in here! I'll give you a hint: The New Lars, Log Date 7 15 2, and Mr. Greg (which is admittedly a bit less obvious but still there). And also a very, very subtle reference to Marble Madness. I really need to make a list of the references to canon in each chapter sometime._

 _Thank you so much for reading, as always! It means a lot!_


	13. I Want to Understand

_HI GUESS WHO'S EXCITED FOR THE NEW CRYSTAL GEMS_

 _IT'S ME_

 _I've been waiting for months for Connie to interact with Peridot and Lapis oh my goddd. And now (by now I mean the near future, that is) I can finally write about it as well! :')_

 _Anyways, thank you guys so much for reading!_

* * *

 **I Want to Understand**

 **(i.e., Peridot and Lapis Have Quite an Apatite for Puns)**

"So what does it _do?"_ Peridot asked, pacing back and forth across the wooden planks, a hand plastered to her chin as she narrowed her eyes at the latest addition to the barn. "I mean—does it just _sit_ there all day?"

"Mmm," Lapis mused, curled up in a chair with her face buried in _Pretty Hairstylist._ "That sounds nice."

Her bangs were actually distinguishable from the rest of the blue mop on her head for once, although small tufts still stuck out from the back, refusing to be tamed. Her hair seemed to change so radically and so often that Peridot was quite certain it was something beyond constant shapeshifting. Something far more powerful.

Something like a hairbrush.

She frowned at Lapis. "It sounds _unproductive._ Maybe it's just tired from being chased around by me."

"Bet you really gave her a run for her money."

She narrowed her eyes in confusion. _"Run for..."_

Lapis pointed to her book. "Earth talk."

"Ah, I see! So I made it difficult for the creature to expend its resources—metaphorically referred to as human currency here because that's supposedly the main way they obtain any useful resources since their actual physical structures are so _ridiculously_ fragile—on defeating me in an efficient manner!"

"Uh." Lapis shrugged. "Yeah?"

She grinned. Hmm. A run for human currency. A compliment from Lapis (oh, _stars_ , was this even _real?_ ) that could _also_ double as a chance to impress the others with her ever-expanding Earth lexile. She would be sure to file that away for later use, but for now, all she could do was stare at the virescent bubble in between the both of them, still and silent and holding that ridiculous Gem atrocity that Peridot had nearly gotten herself poofed over—and that was saying something. Peridots were tougher than they looked.

"And so I have received this trophy as a result," she replied, her pace quickening as she eyed the way sunlight crept in through the tiniest slats in the roof and made the bubble gleam yellowish-green, watched the light and shadow swim into one another and provide the illusion of movement and make it look like the bubble was actually—well, _doing_ something.

"This is astounding!" she proclaimed, practically running back and forth now. "This is phenomenal! This is—this is—"

The novelty of light interplay soon wore thin; "soon" in this context roughly translating into a grand total of forty seconds.

Peridot sighed and halted her pace. "Ugh. This is _boring."_ After roughly forty more seconds of pouting, she peered up at the bubble floating mere inches from the ceiling and let out a nasally _hmmmmmm_ long enough to make one of Lapis's eyebrows appear to almost fly off her face.

"Do you think it can hear me in there?"

Lapis blinked. "You've...never seen a bubbled Gem before, have you?"

Peridot huffed. "Of course I've seen them! Twice." She sniffed. "Once in a data log. After...several heavy modifications from my superiors," she admitted with a sigh of defeat.

"So you've never bubbled a gem before, either."

"Okay, Lapis, I think we're all aware of my sore lack of experience now!" she snapped.

"What did it feel like?"

"Er...pardon?"

"To." She motioned to the ceiling with her elbow, her hands still clasped to the cover of her book. "You know."

Peridot narrowed her eyes. "Interesting question. I do remember my hands going all—hmm, _tingly,_ for lack of a better word—"

"Like that time you put them in a toaster?"

She scowled. "I thought we agreed not to talk about that! But yes. Somewhat similar, I suppose."

After that incident, Peridot had decided that toasters were stupid. And by extension, _bread._ And _waffles._ And _bagels._ And any other human foodstuffs that were intended to be heated via toaster. And even though she had a strong hunch that _french fries_ weren't supposed to be put in toasters no matter _what_ Amethyst had told her, she decided she would hate those, too. Just to be safe.

"What else?"

"I...I don't really know. It just kind of...happened," she said, scowling at herself the moment the last word came out of her mouth. She should certainly be better at explaining phenomena than _this._ But...this never was in her data briefings, was it?

" I mean—" she sputtered, heat rising to her cheeks as Lapis's gaze continued to bore into her, "I bubbled it within mere minutes of destroying its physical form. It wasn't even _intentional!_ And then Steven told me to send it off somewhere by tapping the top so I obliged, and it just... _dissipated_ and I had no idea where it would materialize and—"

"Here we are."

"Yes. Here...we are," Peridot echoed in wonder. "I've seen them once, before, you know. Er—apart from the data logs, I mean."

Lapis's brows hovered above her eyes ever so slightly. "Oh?"

Peridot nodded. "There's a chamber. Right in the middle of Steven's residence. Nephrites, Aquamarines, Fire Agates, Carnelians—"

"Alright. Certified Kindergartener. We get it."

Peridot blinked. "You actually _remember_ me mentioning that?"

Lapis sank back in her chair and crossed her legs together. "More like you wouldn't shut up about it and I'm already all caught up with Camp Pining Hearts so I had nothing to drown it out with, but yeah."

Peridot rolled her eyes. "You could _always_ rewatch the episodes. That's how you glean all the subtext from them. And I'm _sure_ we can both agree that your observation journal is sorely lacking any proper analyses. All of the pages are either filled with unwarranted praise for Paulette—"

"The true hero of Camp Pining Hearts," Lapis replied, removing one of her hands from the cover of her book and draping it over an armrest.

"Jeering over Percy's physical appearance—"

"His bangs look terrible. Even _Pretty Hairstylist_ says so."

"—And that crude representation of what's apparently supposed to be _me_ emitting flatulence from my butt!" Peridot finished with a glare. "What does that even have to _do_ with anything?!"

"Nothing. Just thought it was funny."

"Ugh." Peridot wrinkled her nose. "Well apparently, we both have starkly contrasting ideas of _funny._ Also, you drew my gem incorrectly."

Lapis frowned. "It's...just a triangle."

"An _inverted_ triangle, Lapis! And I have five touch stumps on each hand, not six."

Lapis let out a long exhalation that faintly sounded like a whistle. "Wooow. How long did you spend looking at that thing?"

"I—rrgh—that's beside the point!" She huffed and took a moment to regain her composure before clearing her throat. "I _believe_ I was recounting the bubbled Gems at the temple, correct? The room was full of them. All remnants of these...abominations," she said, vaguely gesturing to the bubble with her hands. "Barely functional, imprudently reckless, incessantly screeching—I mean!" She snickered. "I can't believe these dumb things used to be Gems!"

 _Thwap._

Peridot's smile fell flat as she saw Lapis's arms go limp and _Pretty Hairstylist_ fall spread-eagled onto the floor.

"...Lapis?"

Lapis shifted uncomfortably. Peridot cleared her throat.

"Did I say something?" she tried again. But as Lapis's gaze hovered uncertainly towards the green bubble a few feet above her, she decided she already knew the answer to that.

She couldn't get one moment for herself, could she? Every tentative step she took forward was in a minefield.

Too far.

Not far enough.

Even without her limb enhancers, she would still manage to overstep her boundaries (and yes, as comfortable as she was in them, even _she_ could admit they were a bit clunky and could occasionally limit her otherwise flawless dexterity).

Of _course_ she wanted to understand. But was that supposed to be a one-Gem effort? Because if so, it was growing to be immensely unsatisfactory. Imparting information was supposed to benefit both parties, wasn't it?

This was a significant waste of energy compared to the output.

She felt a scowl deepen on her face, but she couldn't stop herself. "Ugh, of _course_ I said something," she spat. "I'm _always_ saying something, aren't I? I _always_ don't understand something, I _always_ misunderstand what I thought I understood prior, and the moment I achieve something and think I finally _do_ understand, it _always_ just ends up being useless and—"

"Something _happened_ to these Gems," Lapis interrupted in a low voice. She swiftly flew up to grab the bubble and float back down to her chair. "During the war."

"Oh, wonderful!" Peridot snapped. "The _war!_ Something _else_ I don't understand! Tell me, if you're so knowledgeable about it, then why don't _you_ go ahead and—"

 _"I don't understand it either!"_

She halted right in her tracks as the words leapt out of Lapis's mouth, realizing that she had started pacing in agitation again during her tirade. Her voice came out much softer this time, yet just as confused.

"...You don't?"

Lapis shook her head, peering into the bubble cradled in between her hands. "The war was almost over. The soldiers were all retreating, then there was some sort of sound—like music, some sort of light...I think that's what caused—this," she said, jabbing her chin towards the corrupted Gem for emphasis. "But no one really knows."

Peridot's shoulders relaxed a little. It was an explanation a bit vague for liking, perhaps, but at least it was one given _willingly._

She would admit, she wasn't really the best at interrogation (and Lapis probably knew that, but Peridot decided that wasn't the most tactful thing to bring up at the moment. Or ever). That was more up an Agate's alley.

She took a seat on the planks beneath her and looked up at Lapis expectantly, curling her legs up and resting her head between her knees.

"You sound like you're speaking from prior experience."

Lapis shrugged, eyes still on the bubble. "Yeah. Kind of."

Peridot narrowed her eyes at her. _"Kind_ of?"

"I saw the whole thing. But I still wasn't really..." she clenched her eyes shut for a few seconds before snapping them back open and sighing. _"There."_

Peridot's frown deepened considerably before her mouth went slack in realization. "...Oh," she squeaked out, much higher than she had anticipated. "The mirr—er, the reflective, vitreous, handheld artifact?" she finished with a shaky, uncertain chuckle.

Lapis rolled her eyes. "You can say _mirror."_

Interesting. So the _M-word_ was no longer a taboo, either. Well, actually, it never explicitly was a taboo, but taking precautions always did more good than harm, right?

Her D-pad _had_ saved the world, after all.

She shifted a bit before slightly craning her neck towards Lapis. "So...you're not uncomfortable with talking about it?"

"Not really," Lapis admitted, absentmindedly and gently stroking the bubble with a wandering thumb. "I just don't know _how_ to talk about it. I was poofed," she murmured. "Cracked. Enslaved for thousands of years. I couldn't even speak for myself. I had to snatch up words from others. Stitch them all together if I wanted to say something."

 _Barely functional._

"But no one would bother to hear me, anyways. No one until Steven. And he actually _wanted_ to release me. He actually understood that I was trapped. And when I finally got out, I was so... _angry."_ She squeezed her eyes shut once more. "Angry at everyone who used me as a tool. At everyone who kept me stuck in that mirror. Everyone who didn't care. _Everyone,"_ she enunciated through gritted teeth before opening her eyes. "I still felt like I was trapped even after I got out. I didn't think. I couldn't think. I took it out. I let it all out." Her shoulders slumped and her elbows went limp. "Really, _really_ badly."

 _Imprudently reckless._

Peridot blinked.

 _Incessantly scree—_

 _—_ Wait, wait, no.

Lapis was...quiet, if anything. Quiet with occasional outbursts of emotion in the middle, perhaps, but taciturn for the most part (almost frustratingly so, but they were working on that. Even if it did involve a copious amount of snarky jibes at Percierre and gratuitous flatulence).

Was she screaming on the inside?

Trapped inside of herself?

...That would make for an intriguing morp, honestly. But now was not the time to exhibit her creative genius. Now was the time to get answers. Now was the time to understand.

"You were...corrupted?" she ventured uncertainly.

Lapis bit her lip as she gazed at Peridot momentarily before going back to observing the bubble. "Not like _this,_ I guess," she said finally. "But yeah."

"So—"

Peridot's mouth snapped shut before she could even coax the first syllable out.

Even _she_ was confused as to why at first. She had said sorry multiple times, hadn't she? Sorry to Amethyst, for calling her defective (which was still undeniably _true,_ but far, far from a bad thing). Sorry to Pearl for underestimating her engineering abilities (which she had made sure to do when Steven was well into his circadian dormancy cycle and Garnet and Amethyst were out of earshot. Oh, stars, she hoped they were out of earshot). And maybe she hadn't exactly formally apologized to Garnet as of yet, but a night of stargazing and several silent thumbs-ups clearly must have meant that the sorry was subconsciously conveyed and implicitly accepted. And Steven, of course. An apology was thrown at him near the core of the Earth, right when Peridot had realized in horror that perhaps there was the slight chance that the D-pad might _not,_ in fact, save them all (but it did. It did and Pearl would never hear the end of it. Peridot would make sure of that).

 _Sorry_ was not an unfamiliar term. And yet...it seemed so unfamiliar and obtrusive in a situation like this. And so, after a great amount of consideration, Peridot decided to go with the next two words she believed were the best to utilize in expressing emotions on this planet:

"Thank you."

Lapis's lips opened slightly in confusion. "What?"

"For, er...imparting this information to me," she said, fidgeting with her hands. "I understand it may have been especially difficult to do so and—"

"I drew your gem wrong on purpose."

"...Uh."

Peridot knew she should be used to this. To Lapis's strange, inexplicable urges to veer off-topic. But sometimes, it still caught her off guard. She peered over at her and frowned. "Okay...may I ask _why?"_

Lapis merely nodded and pinched her nose in response, the bubble now tucked in the crook of her free arm. _"It represents your incredible paradigmal shift that has occurred within barely one Earth revolution—"_

"Hey!" Peridot shot up and scowled at her. "I do _not_ sound like that!"

She stared back at Peridot, her tone eerily even and cool as she asked sincerely, her voice still excruciatingly nasally, "You want me to fart instead?"

Peridot shook her head. "I still fail to understand how the method by which organic lifeforms expel gaseous waste derived from consumption is _funny."_

All she got was a chorus of _pbhffts_ in response as Lapis removed the hand from her nose and proceeded to press it against her cheek.

...Unbelievable.

She grumbled in response, but she still couldn't help but feel a bit in awe. Symbolism. In a morp. From Lapis (really, was this even _real?_ ). And about _Peridot's accomplishments,_ nonetheless. It actually made the flatulence somewhat tolerable as she walked over to Lapis and bent down to inspect the bubble.

"You never answered me, you know. Do you think it can hear us in there?"

Lapis broke off from her _pbhffts_ and frowned slightly. "I know I could."

That settled it, then. Peridot took off to the book stack placed up on the barn loft and scrambled back with a yellow book in tow, cracked it open to page 363, glanced at the lower right corner, and cleared her throat.

"Hmm...ahem! Why did the picture go to jail?"

Lapis raised an eyebrow at her. "What are you doing?"

Peridot scoffed. "I'm entertaining our guest, of course! It must be dreadfully boring to remain in sentient stasis with the only sound in the room being your _farting."_

She was met with that not by a another fart (thank the _stars_ for that), but a series of snorts. She frowned at Lapis, her fingers drumming over her jokebook in irritation.

"What? What's so funny? I haven't even revealed the answer yet!"

"It's just..." She trailed off, her snorts subsiding as she gestured to Peridot's book and then back to the bubble. _"This._ It sounds like something Steven would do."

"...Oh," Peridot murmured, her shoulders tensing slightly. "And that's...a _good_ thing, right?"

Unfortunately for her, Lapis had now developed a habit of answering questions not by evading a response entirely, but by countering them with _another question._ She was certain this wasn't ever mentioned in _How to Talk to People._

"So?"

Peridot frowned. "So what?"

"Why did the picture go to jail?"

"Oh!" She brought the book back up to her face and scanned for the answer. "Because it got _framed!"_

Lapis wrinkled her nose. "That's awful."

Peridot sighed. "I know. Wait! Here's one more!"

One more quickly turned into two more, then five more, then fifteen more until Lapis was sprawled over her chair, the bubbled Gem still resting in her elbow while her feet dangled over an armrest, Peridot pacing back and forth once more as she riffled through her book and halted occasionally to announce her next joke.

"What did the penny say to the other penny?"

"Let's change things up," Lapis muttered at the ceiling.

"Incorrect! It's 'we make perfect cents!'" She looked up from her book and blinked. "Although I do admit, that was clever wordplay on your part."

She got a noncommittal grunt in response.

Typical Lapis.

"Lapis! Lapis! Look at this one! What does a ruby say to express its approval? Of quartz!" Peridot narrowed her eyes as she scrutinized the page. "...What? This is ridiculous. Rubies aren't Quartzes! They're Corundum."

"Corun _dumb,"_ she replied offhandedly, kicking a leg in the air.

Peridot snickered, lowering her book. "Well, that's certainly a _cut_ above the geology jokes in here."

"Humans just don't _carat_ all."

 _"Spinel-ly,_ someone who understands!"

"There's _Beryl-ly_ any out there," Lapis responded dryly.

Peridot was cackling by now. "Oh, _Py,_ you're _rite!"_

And then she was met by a bout of silence followed by yet another grunt. Peridot sighed.

"...That one was sub-par, wasn't it?"

"Yeah. Kinda corundumb."

"Hey! You can't use the same joke twice! You're disqualified!"

Lapis snorted, straightening her posture a little to stare at her. _"Disqualified?"_

"Yes!" Peridot cried. "I win! Praise me! Praise—er..." Her eyes met the Gem tucked in Lapis's elbow, and her acute Kindergartener senses couldn't help but make her inspect the bluish-green sheen of it in awe. Something told her this was more than just the forces of light interplay at work.

"Praise...praise..." she muttered, furrowing her brows at the gleaming facets. _"Prasiolite—"_

"I thought we were done."

"We are. But...hmm." She put a hand to her chin. "Is that a Prasiolite? It has a similar cut...but the shade is a bit more bluish." She crouched down near the chair and squinted. "Green Topaz? Some sort of Tourmaline? Moldavite?"

"Does it really matter?"

...Did it?

In a world filled with overcooked albeit sufficiently strong Amethysts and mechanic Pearls and elusive permafusions and bold yet compassionate whatever-Steven-was? In a world inhabited by a former Kindergartener-turned-leader of the Crystal Gems (okay, maybe Pearl _still_ hadn't agreed to Peridot's rightful status yet, but that was beside the point) and a terraformer-turned-prisoner-turned whatever she wanted to be now?

The sense of freedom gained from the prospect of it all was exhilarating.

Like her entire physical form was inside of a toaster.

She felt like a french fry. She should make a meep-morp about that later.

But now, now was the time to soak in the sunlight that was peering through the slats on the roof. Now was the time to indulge in geological wordplay and gratuitous flatulence. Now was the time to revel. To revel in the fact that yes, yes, she was entirely capable of doing the impossible on a planet that was just as impossible.

She _understood._

She gave her shoulders a slight bob to emulate a shrug that was as nonchalant as possible as she ran her thumb along the spine of _Jokes! How to Make People Laugh Around You Instead of Feel Bad._

"You're right. I suppose it's none of my... _Bismuth."_

Lapis inhaled sharply and nearly dropped the Gem as she launched herself up out of her chair. "Okay, that... _that_ was your worst one."

"Oh, you're just _Jaded,_ Lapis," Peridot said, a smug smile snaking its way across her face as she tore her gaze away from the bubbled to the unbubbled. "That was a real _gem."_

* * *

 _I'm sorry but Lapis's constant change in hairstyles based on who draws her was getting so ridiculous I had to address it lol. I'm 500% sure the reason behind all of this is her love-hate relationship with a hairbrush._

 _I made up all the gem puns single-handedly, so if you found yourself groaning throughout the entire chapter, it's my fault. I apologize. Just this once. Jasper you._

 _The "toaster" is a reference to a post Peridot made on Twitter about shoving her hands into one (yikes), and the "D-pad" is a reference to Peridot's video game controller-operated blast cannon in Gem Drill. I'm honestly still really down for making a compilation of all the references to canon in this fic lol._

 _I thought it would be interesting to make Lapis refer to corrupted Gems as "she's," like Steven does. I feel like her similar experience with corruption (perhaps it wasn't exactly_ corruption, _per se,_ _but she was still severely damaged psychologically) as a result of the mirror would make her still view corrupted Gems as Gems instead of "dumb abominations" like Peridot viewed them in The Kindergarten Kid._

 _And Peridot, of course_ — _she's seen "nothing like this [corruption] on Homeworld," so she's being a bit insensitive. But in the end, she always wants to understand. That's what I love about her. :')_

 _Oh, and thanks for reading, as always!_


	14. Is There Anything That's Worth More?

_Hooo boy Storm in the Room seems angsty. I'm not ready_

 _Oh, and speaking of angst_ — _surprise! There's a biiiit of angst in here because fluff and angst is my jam._

 _Anyways, thank you for reading! :)_

* * *

 **Is There Anything That's Worth More?**

 **(i.e., Lapis Finally Admits to Peridot's Impeccable Leadership Skills)**

 _Percy! You have to understand, I did this for you! I did this for our love! I never meant for things to end this way for us!_

"Look! Right there!" Peridot cried, jabbing the remote control in her hand to pause the television. "The lighting cast on Percy in this scene exhibits wavelengths of a much higher frequency than those on Pierre!"

Lapis crossed her arms. "Meaning?"

"Oh, Lapis, Lapis, Lapis," Peridot chuckled, shaking her head. "Isn't it obvious? Percy's cast in a _purple_ light. Pierre is cast in _yellow._ Their respective team colors have been switched, even if it's only momentarily! Evidently, the dissonance in lighting here represents their conflicted feelings about the Color War and how they're beginning to come to terms with—"

Lapis squinted at the screen. "Uh...I can't even _see_ Pierre."

Peridot scoffed as she launched herself up from the truck floor. "Um, _hello?!_ You can _clearly_ see part of his foot-shirt—"

"Boot."

"—Rrgh, whatever! My point still stands! He's right at the top left corner of the screen! You can see it too, can't you?" She asked, whipping her head around so that her gaze met the green bubble floating on Lapis's left. She frowned and narrowed her eyes. "Hmmph. I'll take your lack of response as a silent approval."

Lapis snorted, hands still interlocked in the crooks of her arms. "I don't think that counts."

"What the—of course it counts!" Peridot rolled her eyes. "It's all _subtext,_ Lapis. The conspicuous dynamics between Paulette and Percy are simply a ploy to divert the viewer from the show's true intentions. Percy and Pierre are undeniably the most compatible pairing!" She smirked at the television waving her remote triumphantly in the air. "Take _that,_ image cube entertainment producers! Nothing can get past the keen, perceptive, superiorly analytical Peridot! Ahem." She took a breath to compose herself and plopped herself back down, pressing down on the play button. "Let's continue."

 _Paulette, I've told you it's Color War. I've told you a thousand times! Why won't you listen to me? Why won't..._ I _listen to me?_

Within mere seconds, Peridot had jabbed the pause button once more, dropping the remote with an excited _clack_ onto the floor as she launched herself up again and rubbed her hands together.

"Oh, there's just _so much_ to dissect here! First off, look at the way Percy enunciates _Color War,_ with his tongue coming into contact with his bone-mouth protrusions—"

 _"Teeth,"_ Lapis said, gritting her own as she did so.

"Besides the point, Lapis! As I was _saying—"_ Peridot thrust a hand out at the freeze frame of Percy. "—Percy's articulation patterns are not normally like this. He usually inflects his tongue inwards while speaking, and now he appears to be mirroring _Pierre's_ mode of speech! You see, back in the Season Two episode _Pining Amongst the Pines,_ when Pierre and Percy had to team up to retrieve Paulette from the forest on the outskirts of Camp—"

"This is boring."

Peridot blinked before her mouth went slack as she gaped at Lapis. A moment of silence heavy with disbelief seemed to hang in the air until Peridot finally spoke.

"Excuse me?"

Lapis's gaze didn't soften in the slightest. "This is the eighth time we've watched this episode."

Peridot frowned. "Well, Lapis, how _else_ do you expect me to glean all of this subtext—"

"In. A. _Row."_

"Er..." She looked on at the television uncertainly, registering Paulette's kayak stationed near the stream paused mid-flow behind Percy. "Is that a human wordplay witticism?"

"Pun," Lapis said, snatching up the remote Peridot had dropped. "And no."

Peridot furrowed her brows and sighed irritably, pointing an accusing finger in Lapis's chest. "You simply don't _appreciate_ my in-depth analyses!"

 _"Over_ analyses."

Peridot's frown deepened into a scowl. "That's ridiculous! How can you ever be _overanalytical?_ I should know, Peridots are _made_ to—"

Her words seemed to stop there, lodged in her throat, the syllables rapidly becoming jumbled up until she could make no sense of her thoughts at all.

She clenched and unclenched her fists as her eyes darted from Percy to the _(far_ from, in truth) observational journal balanced on Lapis's right knee to the corrupted Gem hovering above them, squinting until she nearly screwed her eyes shut trying to ignore the stupid rays of sunlight streaming right into her face. She bit back the urge to scream _Clod_ up at the sky, knowing that it would be senseless and futile.

Was that what a Peridot was supposed to do?

She sucked in a deep breath as she eyed the disc for Season Five of Camp Pining Hearts leaning against the side of the television, which, in normal circumstances she would have scrunched her face up in disgust over and started jeering about, but now? _Now_ the only thing she could manage was a neutral expression as she stared at the triviality, a reminder of where she was and what she was doing and what she had become; although reminder wasn't really the best way to phrase it. She had been well, _well_ aware of her status as a traitor right from the very beginning of her fire-forged alliance.

So why was the reality of it all crushing her _now,_ of all times, and like _this,_ of all ways, when her circumstances could have been far, far worse?

She had something new now, didn't she?

So why did she feel like _she_ was the one in the bubble?

She couldn't figure it out. She hated it when she couldn't figure things out.

Her mouth had been reduced to a taut line and her face was heating up considerably. And she had a sneaking suspicion it wasn't because of the sun. The pangs in her chest began to intensify, feeling oddly, dreadfully familiar.

 _You have failed at every stage of this mission._

No.

 _Your only chance to redeem yourself is to obey this simple order._

Not this again.

 _You are to leave the Cluster to_ grow. _It will tear apart the Earth, and I will take_ immense _satisfaction in erasing that_ hideous _rock off of our star maps. Is. That. Clear?_

 _Anything_ but this.

"I—! I mean!" she protested weakly, trying again, grasping onto the first thing in her line of vision and clinging onto the sight of it desperately. She gazed right at Lapis, the blue notebook on her thigh, the midday breeze making the bow on the back of her neck flap lightly, the remote in her hand dangling loosely by the edge. "Lazulis are—"

Looking back at it, Peridot would fervently promise that was most certainly _not_ what she had meant to say at all. And yet that still didn't change the fact that she had said it. He mouth snapped shut once more as the words began cramming her throat and making her gem feel like it would crack from all the pressure.

"Are what?" Lapis asked quietly. Her gaze had softened slightly, but her posture had become alarmingly rigid. She seemed virtually frozen in place aside from the bow flapping incessantly behind her.

 _Useful,_ the unspoken words in her throat said. _Intimidating. Powerful._

 _Loyal._

Peridot nearly flinched at that last one, but somehow, almost miraculously so, she managed to coax out a shaky response.

"I'm—heading down," she mumbled, walking past the television and towards the truck's edge.

Lapis's lips parted in confusion as she shifted her legs and the notebook slid off with a _thwap._ "What about your—"

 _I'm not interested in the puny thoughts of a Peridot._

"It can wait," Peridot snapped through clenched teeth. "I've run out of _subtext_ to _overanalyze."_

Lapis's gaze hardened once more as the remote clacked violently onto the floor, getting up and unfurling her wings to take leave as well.

"Fine," she snapped right back.

It was only after Peridot had flung herself off of the truck and dug her heels into the dirt that she realized Lapis had headed to the top of the silo, brooding up there in silence as she cupped her face in her hands and slouched forward to gaze languidly up at the sky. Peridot gave a sharp, bitter laugh.

Some things never _did_ change, did they?

She retired to the inside of the barn and began sifting through all the junk (not _morp;_ the _junk)_ accumulated in it, eventually finding herself violently tossing several screws around in the air. Her fingers fluttered as she desperately tried to occupy herself.

It didn't work.

She decided to rummage through more boxes (although it would be more accurate to say she kicked them around and dumped them out while scowling and muttering _Clod_ at quite a few of them), each one only ending up more dissatisfying than the last. _Mops. Pillows. Lamps._

Trinkets.

Useless.

Ridiculous.

 _I don't care about_ potential _and_ resources.

...And then there were the shreds of fabric lying underneath one of the boxes, hopelessly tattered beyond repair yet oddly, inexplicably enticing. She hesitantly shoved the box away before snatching up the fabric all too unhesitantly. Her chest felt strangely tight and uncomfortable.

 _Imagine! Appearance modifiers that aren't melded to your body._

Her breath hitched as she rubbed a sliver of boxer shorts between her thumb and index finger, the patterned aliens staring back up at her with blank, black eyes (these ones...they _didn't_ understand).

And then her vision became unexpectedly blurred as the words in her throat dissolved and made their way out through her burning eyes.

Peridot felt her teeth clench as she paced around the barn in agitation, tears rolling down her cheeks and horridly distorting what she could see through her visor as if to taunt her. But perhaps the worst part was that she had absolutely no willpower to brush them all away like she had done back when she had drilled down to the Cluster with Steven.

No willpower. It almost made her want to laugh. It was _funny._

She really _wasn't_ a Peridot, was she?

 _You are out of line._

She kicked another box and watched as packets filled with what Steven had referred to as _seeds_ for growing _vegetables_ tumbled out and lay sprawled across the wooden planks next to Lapis's leaf morp. She launched herself to attack a larger, much heavier box before shrieking in pain and clutching her foot as her face got considerably damper.

Why? Because for a fleeting moment, Peridot had felt like her feet were strong and sturdy and nestled securely into her limb enhancers.

She winced. She was such a _clod._

She was just about to settle down in exhaustion and sigh in defeat when she caught the object jutting out of the box that had injured her, metallic knobs glinting in the sunlight. Once again, she plucked a string on it hesitantly, and then yanked it out of the box and set it down on her lap as she plopped down onto the floor all too unhesitantly.

 _"Do mi so do,"_ she muttered, her fingers grazing the ukulele strings. She drummed her fingers against the wood for a few moments before slowly peeling her palm off the floor to pluck each string one by one.

"Do mi so ti..."

She sucked in a deep breath and registered her once-hot tears now cooling on her cheeks as she began strumming the ukulele with more confidence.

 _"Life and death and love and birth—"_

"Nice song."

 _"Gah!"_ Peridot yelped and ended her singing with an unceremonious _twoing._ "I—" She swallowed nervously as she watched Lapis, observation book clutched in one of her hands, shove aside numerous boxes strewn all over the place with her foot and sit down on the floor inches away from her. "Uh..." Peridot chuckled nervously. "Lapis—"

Lapis responded with a frown as she stared at Peridot, the latter nervously strumming _do mi so do do mi so ti_ over and over on the ukulele until the former let out a small gasp. "Are _you—"_

 _"NO!"_ Peridot screeched back much more violently than she had intended, her hands shooting up to her face slip themselves under her visor and swipe away the tears from her eyes—and also, regrettably, the odorous, viscous fluid emanating from her nose. She scrunched up her face as she wiped a slimy hand on her thigh. Crying was _disgusting._

But she had also learned that it usually happened out of one's control. She sighed as she put her now (hopefully) sanitary hand against her gem and looked at Lapis.

"I mean—I'm just...confused."

Lapis sighed back. "Yeah?"

Peridot bit her lip, her fingers now absentmindedly strumming a melody she would later register as _re ti la so la fa._ "I...I don't wish to return to Homeworld in light of everything that's occurred, obviously." She swallowed. "That would be ridiculous. I have no desire to work for Yellow Diamond, and—and she thinks I'm disposable, anyhow," she added quietly, her fingers now clasped together tightly as the ukulele lay idle in her lap. "And I've decided that _this—"_ she said, slapping a hand against the barn floor, "—is _home._ So why do I still feel like..." She trailed off and swallowed again, her voice becoming dangerously shaky. "Like—"

"Peridot."

 _Which Peridot?_

"Facet 2F5L, Cut 5XG!" she responded almost immediately without thinking. The minute she had realized it, she had her hands, which were about to go into the customary Diamond salute, take a detour to her forehead to slap herself on her gem. For once, she was glad Lapis didn't acknowledge her. Instead, she settled for frowning at Peridot like she always did, except this time, she decided to accompany it with some advice.

"It's okay to be confused, you know."

...Or what Peridot assumed was _supposed_ to be advice, that was.

"But I don't want to be!" Peridot snapped, shoving her ukulele aside and bending her knees upwards so she could rest her head in between them. "I—I'm not supposed to be!"

"What _are_ you supposed to be?"

"A...a _Kindergartener,"_ she mumbled, the weight of the word crashing down on her as she tensed up her shoulders. "A technician. But now..." She sniffed. _"Now_ I'm just—"

"A morpist."

Peridot blinked at her. "Wh—what?" she sputtered, before scowling at herself for being so excruciatingly inarticulate today.

"An analyst," Lapis continued, gesturing vaguely to her notebook before adding with a small smirk, "leader of the Crystal Gems."

"Ha! I knew it!" Peridot interjected, her voice steadily becoming stronger as a smile began tugging at the corners of her face. "You _do_ admit to my impeccable leadership skills after all!"

Lapis's smirk faded as she raised an eyebrow at her. "I never said that."

Peridot rolled her eyes. "It's _subtext,_ Lapis."

That actually managed to coax a small smile out of the surly gem, which Peridot reflected with her own until she caught sight of the sheet of paper poking out of the journal Lapis had brought with her. Upon seeing it, she knelt over and gingerly dragged the notebook into her lap before tugging the stray sheet out between the pages.

"Holy smokes," she breathed, the paper trembling slightly in her hands, showing a crudely-drawn representation of what Peridot could only assume was her and Lapis holding hands and floating awkwardly in midair. She rubbed a thumb over the wax imprint left by Steven's _crayons._

"...Is _this...?"_

"What?" Lapis leaned over to look at the card; Peridot heard her breath hitch as she examined the paper.

"Oh—wow," Lapis managed finally. "It is."

Peridot snorted and shook her head, waving the paper around. "Look at the anatomy on this! It's _dreadful."_

Lapis jabbed Peridot in the shoulder with her elbow, frowning resolutely. "Hey. Don't be so hard on Steven."

"But—! But!" Peridot tried and failed miserably to fight back a snicker. "You don't even have a scent sponge! Er— _nose."_ She grinned as she flipped it open, ready to marvel at the apology the card held. "The inside is the part _I_ did, so it's clearly far superior. Let's see..."

 _Sorry I interrogated you. You were just full of such useful information. That's a sincere compliment._

 _—Peridot_

She blinked.

...Okay, maybe that hadn't been her best work.

At all.

Peridot swallowed as Lapis read it over as well, her face burning with a mixture of shame and embarrassment as she locked her eyes on _useful information._ Really, what had she been thinking? Evidently, she had been preoccupied while crafting this.

...She sincerely hoped it was something important. But then again, it probably wasn't since she couldn't remember it at _all._ She clenched and unclenched her fists again.

 _Clod._

"Erm..." she began hesitantly before being cut off by a loud chortle from Lapis.

"This _sucks,_ _"_ she declared.

Peridot scowled at her. "Then why do you still _have_ it?" she shot back.

Lapis stiffened. "Uh—"

"Yes, Lapis?" she said in between snickers, her scowl morphing into a smug grin. "You were saying?"

Lapis glared at her and jabbed her shoulder again. "Shut up."

And Peridot actually obliged for a moment; mainly because now she was too busy scanning the room intently as the inkling of a plan formed in her mind.

"I think I have an idea," she said after a bout of silence.

Lapis blinked. "For...what?"

"For putting my old skills to use in a new setting! Kindergartening, to be more specific," she said, shooting upwards and dusting off her knees. "Obviously, I can't exactly incubate soldiers like I used to, but—"

"No," Lapis cut in abruptly. "No soldiers." She sighed and crossed her arms. "I'm tired of dealing with Rubies."

Peridot scoffed. "Don't be ridiculous! Why would I be incubating _Rubies?_ I'm referring—" she said, running towards a small, white packet that lay on the wood floor, "—to _these."_

Lapis got up and inspected the packet.

"Uh...corn?"

"Precisely! These are _seeds,_ Lapis. Apparently, life is created on Earth from planting these things into the ground and exposing them to specific combinations of water and sunlight. And then— _kapowie!"_ she declared, shooting her arms up into the air. "Organic life!"

"How long will it take?"

"Hmm...judging from the description on the back, 60 to 100 Earth rotations."

Lapis considered this. "Not bad."

Peridot grinned. "Is that a tentative agreement to a vegetable-growing partnership I hear?"

Lapis snorted. "Partnership? _You're_ the Kindergartener, not me."

"Pfft! According to _Homeworld,_ maybe. But we're not on Homeworld, are we? And besides, if we're following that vein of logic, then I'd like to know, when's the last time _you've_ terraformed, Lapis... _Lazy_ -li?"

Lapis stuck her tongue out at her. "Rude."

Peridot chuckled. "You have to admit, though, it was still quite a clever... _pun,_ wasn't it?"

"It's..." Lapis took a deep breath. _"Perinot."_

A brief moment of tense silence passed before Peridot wrinkled her nose in disbelief. "What was _that?!_ That was _awful!"_

Lapis shrugged. "I know." She bent down to pick up another packet of seeds off the floor which Peridot deduced were for growing _pumpkins_ by reading the front.

"So...what kind of seed did Steven come out of?"

Peridot blinked at her and frowned. "How would _I_ know that?"

"Eh. Just wondering."

"Hmm..." Peridot started pacing across the barn, careful to step over the ukulele every time she crossed paths with it. "I don't even know if he _came_ out of a seed, considering his status as a hybrid. But if he did...it was objectively a superior one, Lapis. The best one this mess of a planet has to offer."

Lapis smiled at that, and this time, it wasn't crooked or lopsided or smug. It was one that, albeit small, lit up her face quite significantly.

"Yeah, I guess you're right."

And for a moment, Peridot _did_ feel like her legs were nestled in her limb enhancers. She felt bigger than she could have ever imagined mere moments ago.

 _What do_ you _know about the Earth?_

Peridot took in a deep, contented breath, the pulsating pressure behind her gem slowly dissipating.

 _Apparently more than_ you, _you clod._

She cracked a triumphant smile back at Lapis. "But that still doesn't bar our _corn_ from becoming a close second! So!" she announced, clearing her throat, "What do you say, fellow—" She fought back a snicker as she stretched out her hand. _"—Kindergartener?"_

But Lapis didn't take it. Instead, she promptly exited the barn and left a confused and slightly annoyed Peridot in her wake.

"Hey!" she protested, glaring in her direction and taking off after her (but not before nearly tripping on the ukulele, which resonated an angry _re_ as Peridot stumbled around to stay upright). "Where are you go—"

Her mouth snapped shut as she stared up incredulously at the enormous, amorphous blob of water floating right above her head as she walked outside, Lapis standing a foot or so away from her and grinning as she twirled a finger around in the air. Peridot's eyes darted from her to the empty pool and back again, her mouth significantly agape.

"Oh my stars..." she muttered weakly.

All she got in response was Lapis continuing to swirl the blob in the air above them before announcing:

"We're gonna need a _lot_ of water."

* * *

 _AAAAAA I just really wanted to make some Peridot-centric angst. I feel like she still has a pretty hard time adjusting to her surroundings; she's learned a lot, sure, but she still has much, much more to learn. I feel like she would still have a hard time breaking out of Homeworld's mindset, and it would slip into her speech and actions and thoughts now and then. It's a reminder of her origins, and while she does take pride in being a know-it-all, sometimes it just gets to her like it did in Gem Drill. Not to mention that in Gem Harvest, she claimed she missed the pitter-patter of Homeworld soldiers' feet. The garden was probably initially created as a way to cope with being homesick._

 _The quotes in italics (namely Yellow Diamond's) were a last-minute addition I thought would add a bit more of emotional impact to the chapter, hopefully they aren't too confusing!_

 _...Also as I'm typing this I just realized I made Peridot sing while crying. W O W this is a whole new level of referencing canon it was completely unintentional I swear_

 _"Re ti la so la fa" is supposed to loosely translate musically to "we are the Crystal Gems" (except "fa" is supposed to be a sharp, not a natural). Just thought it would be a fun little thing to sneak in._

 _Anyways, thanks for reading as always; you guys are the best! :')_


	15. A Welcome Reprieve

_Hello! I'm back for another installation!_

 _Stargazing scenes hold an inordinate amount of importance to me. Don't ask me why; even I don't know why. I guess it's the atmosphere that night brings? Ugh it's just so pretty. I'm rambling._

 _Anyways, thanks for the support! :)_

* * *

 **A Welcome Reprieve**

 **(i.e., Peridot Wishes Lapis Would Stop Laughing at the Paint Cans)**

Despite the fact that the barn was no longer on the receiving end of any sunlight at this particular point of time in Earth's rotational cycle, the night was a bit warmer, almost uncomfortably so, than most. And despite how useless she had found the activity to be just months prior, Peridot would admit: perhaps stargazing wasn't so bad. Perhaps it had just been the (undeniably _monumental_ amount of) stress which had resulted from making sure the Cluster stayed dormant that had caused her to ignore the activity's perks.

It was aesthetically pleasing, for one.

The sky was a sheet of rich blue, like a deep cut of well-incubated Sapphire, speckled with a smattering of pinprick stars, some so small and imperceptible she had to squint vigorously to make them out—not that it should have really mattered.

Most of them were probably already dead. She was merely left examining the consequential emanations of light which had traveled millions of light years to reach this planet long after their sources had burned out, resulting in these ghosts of gaseous, celestial emanations blazing through the void. Peridot drummed her fingers on her knees as she furtively connected each one with each other with her darting eyes, her legs thwacking against the neatly bundled bale of hay she had pressed up against the barn wall, right next to the front entrance.

 _Constellations._

 _Cygnus. Aquila. Lyrus. Ursa Major. Ursa Minor._

Steven had pointed them out to her; Pearl had briefed her on their formal names.

She wasn't aware stars even _had_ names. That is, names apart from 1026-032, 1031-078, and innumerable other strings of digits used to identify the bodies purely for the sake of gaining objective bearings while maneuvering the vast expanse of space.

But _now_ they had names—and pictures, too, admittedly, but Peridot _still_ couldn't see how the clusters of stars Steven had instructed her to connect together resembled a _swan_ or a _bear_ in the slightest. She didn't mind, however.

Alive, no. But indisputably enjoyable to observe.

It almost didn't matter that every single time she looked up at the sky, her eyes seemed to stumble upon—

"Hey."

—Lapis Lazuli.

Well, it wasn't supposed to be _her_ she was going to be gazing at, but she stood in front of Peridot resolutely, blocking the center of her field of vision and then some with spikes of blue hair haphazardly poking out of her head and curling up, over, and around the stars. She prodded the hay bale with a toe as Peridot cleared her throat and looked on at her uncertainly.

"Er... _yes,"_ she said slowly, lifting a hand from her knee and tracing it across the coarse strands beneath her. "This is... _hay."_

Lapis looked mildly taken aback for a second before raising an eyebrow at Peridot and giving her a small snort. She crossed her arms.

"Human wordplay witticism?"

 _"Pun,"_ Peridot corrected with a small smile. But it vanished right when Lapis shifted her position and the sky was unobstructed once more.

Just her, the hay, and the stars.

...And Lapis giving an uncharacteristic "uh" right after just as uncharacteristically clearing her throat. Peridot narrowed her eyes in suspicion as she watched her appear to be addressing the grass beneath her toes.

"Can I...?" she trailed off.

Peridot frowned. "Yes?"

Lapis merely responded by grunting and awkwardly thumping her calf against the edge of the hay bale. It was only when she did it a second time that Peridot became aware of her implications.

 _Not_ that it cleared things up any more, but she understood.

She gaped in disbelief at Lapis, whose arms were still nesting in between her elbows.

"You're asking _me?_ For my _permission?_ And for you to _willingly sit with me,_ nonetheless?"

Lapis gave a sigh laced with irritation. "Is that a yes or a no?" she snapped back curtly.

"...Er."

Yes, Peridot was well aware that was not one of the given choices of response. But then again, the fact that Lapis was actually _looking at her expectantly_ and _waiting for a response_ practically warranted a baffled reaction.

"Welllll," she said, stretching out the word as much as she could while racking her mind for more words to string together, "from what I've gathered, stargazing is an activity meant, uh, for _two._ So..." she gave the expanse of hay to her right a quick pat before placing it back on her knee. "Affirmative."

"Mmm. Alright." Peridot watched as Lapis seated herself down onto the bale in one quick, fluid motion, an action that was much more graceful than the unceremonious _thwack_ she had given the bale just moments ago. That was simply how it was with Lapis; gruff and graceless one moment, refined and elegant the next. Admittedly a bit volatile to handle at times, but surprisingly rewarding when you could. She turned back to the night sky, her eyes fixed right in the center of the sheet of blue.

Just her, Lapis, and the stars.

"Homeworld's galaxy, huh?"

 _"Ack!"_

She stiffened as Lapis exhaled, her breath mingling in with the night air and making it slightly chillier than it was mere seconds prior. Peridot peeled her eyes away from the spiral of streaks up above, her cheeks burning as she muttered out a meek "Yes."

Lapis nodded, leaning back against the barn wall. "It looks better up on the roof."

There were a vast multitude of responses Peridot could have shot back at that, including but not limited to _For you, maybe; I vastly prefer the perspective offered from down here;_ and the more recently learned _Suit yourself,_ despite there currently being no shirts within an attainable radius for Lapis to _suit._

But even the prospect of using Earth slang wasn't appealing to her right now as she ceased drumming her knees and ended up squeezing her thighs instead, staring up at the sky apprehensively.

"Perhaps," she managed to mutter as she cast all of her other responses away, eyes locked on the galaxy burning as bright as ever above her. She felt like she should have offered something more to work with as the silence hung in between them with an incalculable amount of tension. She bit her tongue as she looked across at Lapis, who looked vaguely uncomfortable and unsure how to respond.

This wasn't how conversations were supposed to work.

She pressed her hands into her thighs harder.

 _Clod._

"Hey."

Peridot inhaled sharply as she processed the word, much softer yet much clearer this time, laced with something she could only place as...

...Concern?

"Are you...okay?"

Peridot exhaled sharply as she processed Lapis's voice yet again. _"Excuse me?_ Am I registering this correctly? You're _asking me_ if _I'm okay?"_ She snorted. "Did the Lapis Lazuli I've been residing with _get swapped out for another one_ when I wasn't paying attention? Did I— _ow!"_ she scowled and rubbed the leg Lapis had kicked as she snorted back at Peridot.

"I'll take that as a yes."

Peridot's scowl faded into a small frown as she curled her leg back up onto the bale of hay, and Lapis's chuckling quickly subsided. "I'm..." she bit her lip, recounting an uncharacteristically (heh, _everything_ and _everyone_ seemed to be acting uncharacteristically today) hazy memory of her breakdown. _"Okay,"_ she enunciated finally. "I appreciated your, uh...verbal reassurance earlier today."

"And watering the seeds?" Lapis asked, her leg nudging Peridot's again, but much more gently.

Peridot brightened. "Of course!" she chirped. "That as well."

The _corn_ didn't seem to be doing much as of now, but then again, it had only been 4 hours upon incubation. They had chosen an expanse of grass and dirt Peridot had concluded obtained optimal corn-growing conditions: rich brown soil, generous exposure to sunlight, and plenty of room for Peridot to put the tractor to good use (she frankly had no idea what it was _for,_ but she figured it was nothing she couldn't deduce. For the mean time, however, she was perfectly fine with driving it around in circles and cackling triumphantly as Lapis expressed how she was duly impressed by rolling her eyes—it _was_ a sign of approval, and no one could convince Peridot otherwise. Tractors were _cool_ ).

"—And my latest morp?" Lapis interrupted, smirking as Peridot recalled the conglomeration of rubbery cushions filled with gas that let out a chorus of grating _pbhffts_ whenever Lapis gave them a squeeze (which was, regrettably, much more often than Peridot preferred).

She sighed in exasperation. "Don't push it."

Lapis responded by rolling her eyes (it _was_ a sign of approval! Just...maybe not all the time. Perhaps it was ambiguous depending on the situation). "Oh, _I'm_ pushing it?" she retorted. _"You're_ the one who forced me to live with you after dragging me away from Homeworld, where I was trying to get to _for thousands of years,_ only to interrogate me, use me like a tool, and make me everyone's prisoner again!" She ticked off each accusation with her fingers as Peridot's mouth went uncomfortably dry.

...Peridot sincerely wished she had a repository of possible responses at her disposal for that. She shifted hesitantly as Lapis started _laughing,_ of all things, her chest heaving up and down in between snickers.

"Um—" she squeaked out, fiddling with her hands.

Lapis's laughter abruptly died out as she caught Peridot's expression, and she cleared her throat and glanced aside as she let her shoulders slump.

"...Yeah. Not funny." She cleared her throat again. "Sorry."

"Humor is...subjective, I suppose."

"Heh." Lapis shrugged. "I guess."

Peridot would be lying in claiming that the silence between them that followed wasn't awkward; but somehow, in spite of herself, she felt much more at ease gazing up at the sky while being accompanied by the now-considerably-chilled air offered by the exhalations of the Gem sitting next to her. _Why_ she was so cold was beyond Peridot, but she supposed the night was getting to be a bit stuffy anyhow. A welcome reprieve. She now continued to drum her fingers on her knees, instilled with a new sort of vigor, getting herself lost in the systematic rhythm, the view of the night, and—

"You're humming."

Peridot froze up before groaning irritably.

"Ugh, I _know,_ " she grumbled. "Ever since I'd recalled that... _song_ that Steven had taught me, I can't stop singing it! It's _driving me up the wall,"_ she declared, careful to deliberately emphasize the last five words. Heh. Earth slang.

...But of course Lapis didn't seem to catch the drift. Perhaps next time.

"War and death?" she inquired.

Peridot gaped and blinked at her in disbelief. "...Really? Out of _all the words_ you could have remembered, it was _those two?"_

She shrugged. "They were in the song, weren't they?"

"I won't deny that. But it's _Peace and Love,_ Lapis."

"Peace and love and war and death?"

"Rrgh, _no!"_ Peridot launched herself off of the hay and twirled around to face Lapis, a hand placed firmly on her own chest. "Here, listen to me. _Life and death and love and birth—"_

"Life and death and love and birth," Lapis deadpanned.

"Er—that's off-tune, but yes." Peridot cleared her throat and continued.

 _"And peace and war on the planet Earth."_

"And peace and war on the—"

Peridot shook her head fervently, arms suspended upwards in frustration. "No, no, no! You have to transpose your syllables to the corresponding notes! _Mi fa mi mi fa mi ti la."_

Lapis slouched against the barn wall, lazily waving a hand in the air. "La ta fa mi fi la."

Peridot blinked. "We'll...work on that later," she decided with a sigh, letting her shoulders slump.

"Singing is more of a Pearl thing," Lapis muttered.

Peridot smirked at her. "Well, it's not like the Pearl here _doesn't_ sing. But I..." She frowned. "I understand what you mean. Everything is starkly different here. And occasionally, there are rules for things, but they're unspoken and one has to figure them out for themselves."

"Is this about the roof?"

"For the last time, I _wasn't aware_ that humans couldn't fly!" Peridot snapped before grumbling incoherently under her breath. "And I didn't know that their appearance modifiers aren't a part of their physical form. Or that all of them require _entire rooms_ dedicated to expelling waste." She snorted. "I know this place is ridiculous, but the inhabitants are far more ridiculous!" She shook her head as her tirade dissolved into a small series of chuckles, prodding the hay bale with her foot in a way similar to how Lapis was doing so earlier.

"Did you know that Garnet stargazes by _herself?"_

Lapis looked at her uncertainly. "Um—"

"The permafusion," Peridot clarified.

Lapis nodded slowly. _"Permafusion,"_ she echoed in a low voice, rubbing at her wrists. "I still don't get that."

"Oh! Well, it's quite simple. You see, she's made of two components: a _Ruby_ and a _Sapphire._ And both of them wish to stay perpetually fused despite the lack of any real need to—"

"I know what she _is,"_ Lapis snipped back, making Peridot's mouth snap shut at her acerbic tone. "I just... _don't get it."_ She raised her hands up to her head, digging her fingers into her scalp. "How she can stand to be like that."

"I do," Peridot said suddenly, quietly.

Lapis blinked, hair still splayed in between her fingers. "What?"

Peridot grinned. "She's like—like Percy and Pierre! Not like..." She clicked her tongue dismissively as her fingers fluttered in the air. _"Percy and Paulette."_

Lapis gave a harsh, guttural laugh as she peeled her back off of the barn wall. "Did you _seriously_ just compare—"

"—Oh, and you're Percy," Peridot interjected, shrugging in defense when she noticed that Lapis continued to gawk at her. "Just—just clarifying," she added hastily.

"Why can't I be Paulette?"

Peridot snorted. _"Paulette_ is reserved especially for _clods."_

 _"Percierre_ is for clods."

 _"Percierre?"_ Peridot repeated dubiously. "Is that some sort of speculative fusion name?"

"Uh...I guess?"

She repeated the word a few times before letting out a sharp, nasally chuckle. "Well, it sounds infinitely better than..." She wrinkled her nose. _"...Paulcy,_ doesn't it?"

Lapis lowered her hands from her head and apprehensively planted them onto the hay.

"...Yeah."

"They're so _incompatible!"_

She clenched the strands tightly, resulting in a dull crunching sound emanating from in between her fingers. "Mmm."

"But..." Peridot sighed, gazing across at Lapis's suffocating grip on the hay bale.

"...Not every fusion has to be."

As a lapse of silence occurred for the third time that night, Peridot grimaced and wondered if she should have worded her response differently.

After what figuratively seemed to be an entire Earth revolution, Lapis scowled and glared at Peridot suspiciously. "If you're trying to get me to _fuse with you—"_

—Yes, she _definitely_ should have worded her response differently.

She froze in place, her mouth hanging open and snapping closed repeatedly before she shook her head in an effort to gain her composure. _"What?!_ No no no!" She blurted out all too hurriedly, vigorously shaking her hands in denial. "I...I mean..." She shuffled awkwardly. "I'm not even sure if I possess the ability."

"Wha..." Lapis trailed off just as quickly as she had started speaking, eyes widening slightly in realization. "Oh."

Peridot nodded. _"Era 2,"_ she responded with a wry, mirthless smile. "And besides, I am well, well aware that your prior experience with fusion was...er, unsatisfactory."

Lapis snorted. "That's one way to put it," she muttered.

"Yes!" Peridot replied, although truthfully, it sounded more like a high-pitched shriek."So—so it would be _illogical,_ not to mention _highly insensitive,_ for me to, uh, try and _coerce_ you into—"

"Pierre or Percy?"

"Er..." The tension in Peridot's body dissolved somewhat, if only to give way to confusion. She watched in wonder as Lapis got up off the hay bale and stared down at her.

"...What?"

Lapis stared back at her, her gaze unflinching. "I can't be scared of this forever. Do you wanna be Pierre or Percy?" she repeated firmly.

"I..." Peridot shook her head as she registered what was happening. "Oh my stars," she muttered weakly. "You're joking me."

"What, you wanna be Paulette?"

Peridot gasped in horror. _"Lapis!"_

Lapis smirked. "Yeah, thought so."

Peridot looked up at her uncertainly. The temperature of the air seemed to drop a degree a second as she observed the way the moonlight washed over Lapis's figure and rendered it a pale, muted blue. Her bow flapped slightly behind her just like Peridot expected it to. Just like it always did.

That was just how it was with Lapis.

"Do you...want to understand?" Peridot asked her quietly.

Lapis extended her hand out. "Yeah."

Peridot stared back at the offering before giving a quick laugh and grabbing it.

"Good. So do I."

And then she just proceeded to awkwardly gaze at the sight of their fingers laced together as she used her free hand to scratch the back of her head, her eyes darting around for a solid minute or so to avoid the judgemental stare Lapis was giving her.

"Um..." she managed finally, rigidly shuffling a bit to the left across the grass and then to the right, her hand still held in Lapis's. "Do we just—"

"We _dance,"_ Lapis replied, her free arm planted on her hip as she eyed Peridot almost amusedly. "You've seen fusion before, right?"

Peridot scoffed. "Of course I have! But..." She drummed her fingers on her chin and gasped. "I think I'll need to acquire something before we commence. Uh—" She yanked her fingers out from in between Lapis's and dashed into the barn. "I'll be back!"

Peridot would be lying if she claimed that she thought that the paint cans weren't necessary. But she wouldn't be lying if she claimed that Lapis thought otherwise.

 _"Pfft!"_

"Hey!" Peridot glared at her, taking a wobbly step forward and craning her neck upwards as she huffed indignantly. Despite the height enhancement, she was still a few inches short of Lapis vertically. "This isn't going to work if you're going to _mock me_ the whole time!"

Lapis snorted as she wiped a tear from her eye. "It's not gonna work if you keep tripping over your paint cans, either."

 _"Excuse you!_ " Peridot took another step forward. "I'll have you know that I— _woahwoahwoahwoahwoah!"_ She quickly faltered as she teetered back and forth on the rim of her left paint can before settling back down and scrunching her face up into a scowl, her cheeks heating up considerably. "It's _been_ a while, okay?!"

Lapis rolled her eyes (there! It _had_ to be approval! Her paint cans were undeniably the _coolest_ thing around besides maybe herself. Or those sunglasses sitting on a shelf in the barn that she had been eyeing for a while). "Whatever. Let's just get this over with."

She then proceeded to firmly interlock her fingers with Peridot's, pulling her in until they were inches away and Peridot could see the extremely, _extremely_ faint hints of gold flecks across Lapis's face that she had never noticed prior.

Or maybe it was just the moonlight.

Or the fact that she couldn't think straight as she expended all of her energy into keeping her balance and trying to follow Lapis's intricate dips and swirls.

In hindsight, she probably should have expended more energy on the former.

In one swift move and one sharp yelp, Peridot succeeded in both hopelessly losing her footing and dragging Lapis down with her—but fortunately, with one final effort to dig her cans firmly into the dirt, she managed to save Lapis from bearing the brunt of the fall, stooping over her with her hands plastered rigidly to her cold back as she stared back with wide eyes.

Unfortunately, Lapis seemed to slip right through after a moment anyways, plopping onto the dirt with another yelp and a _thud._

Peridot immediately crouched down in concern, instantly lost balance and had her mouth meet a clump of dirt, and then promptly grumbled as she spit it out and kicked her paint cans off her feet. She brushed off her knees and inhaled sharply as she crouched down once more.

"Uh...Lapis?"

Lapis didn't look at her.

She was eyeing the grass once again, her voice quiet and almost... _ashamed_ as she dug her nails into the dirt.

"I can't."

Peridot blinked. "Er...pardon?"

"I can't _do_ it," Lapis muttered hoarsely. "It's just—" She shuddered. "So much like _last time_ —I mean—" She shook her head. "Not— _you,_ just—"

"That's okay."

Lapis jerked her head up in confusion. "What?"

 _"It's,"_ she enunciated, grabbing Lapis by the arm and pulling her up, _"okay._ So you're not ready. Pfft!" She snorted. "Who cares? I've managed to be extraordinarily appealing and charismatic for this long _without_ fusion, I'm sure I can hold out a bit longer. As long as you need. You still made an effort. That's what counts."

Lapis responded with another dry laugh, but it was her comment that she made in between snickering moreso than the chilly air she created with her exhalations that made Peridot shudder.

"We— _heh!_ We would've gotten shattered on Homeworld for this."

She frowned as soon as she caught sight of Peridot unrapping her fingers from around Lapis's arm and shifting uncomfortably again.

"...Not funny?"

"Er..." Peridot sighed. "Not really, no," she admitted. "But we'll work on that."

Lapis laughed again, but this time, it felt more sincere. "Right after the _singing lesson?"_

"Hmm...yes," Peridot decided with a firm nod. "But not right now. I feel like now would be a more appropriate time to..." She stared back at the star-encrusted sky, not even feeling the slightest pang of remorse this time as her eyes stumbled across the spiral of starry streaks right in the center.

"...Stargaze," she finished, dotting together all the incomprehensible stick patterns Steven had taught her. "You said you preferred the roof?"

Lapis shrugged. "Yeah. But I guess down here isn't half-bad, either."

A valid point. Peridot picked up her paint cans and set them down next to the hay bale before plopping herself onto it and thwacking her legs to the rhythm of _Peace and Love_ once more. Lapis followed suit, sans song.

One day, perhaps. One day.

But for now, Peridot would settle for this. She let her feet dangle downwards as far as she could manage, barely grazing the tips of the blades of grass underneath her as she acknowledged that the night would now probably be cooler than she had imagined it to be initially.

It was a welcome reprieve. She sucked in the air, adjusted her visor, and traced a finger over the sky.

"Hey, Lapis, do you know what a _constellation_ is?"

* * *

 _It's...pretty freaking hard to write a fusion (or fusion attempt!) scene without making it seem intimate even in the slightest, so yeah. I tried my best to balance it out with a good dose of awkward._

 _I didn't want to make them_ actually fuse _because:_

 _a) I want to keep this series as compliant with canon as possible, so I don't want to make up stuff about their fusion that could be refuted in an episode later on._

 _b) Also, frankly, I just don't feel like Lapis is ready yet. I'd love to see a Lapis fusion in the future besides Malachite, but I feel like she needs a lot of time to warm up to action of fusing again, regardless of who it's with._

 _Lapis is the queen of awkward jokes I mean like. Remember her joke about the corn in the mirror in Gem Harvest? WOW that was awkward. But Peridot seemed to understand that that's just how her sense of humor is so I kind of wanted to allude to her getting a feel for it here. I also really really like the idea of Lapis just being naturally cold for some reason? Idk walking ice pack Lapis has just always appealed to me. Oh, and of course, the whole flecks of gold thing. I really like that headcanon as well._

 _Also, one more thing. For some reason, school has been immensely enjoying tearing every last iota of energy I have to shreds, so sadly, I must announce that I can't really update this weekly anymore. Probably once every ten to twelve days or something like that from now on. Thank you for the support regardless, though! I have many, many more chapters in store for this, I'm not stopping any time soon!_

 _Thanks for reading; it means a lot! :)_


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